


In Your Blood, In Your Making

by dixiehellcat



Series: Wordsmith [9]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers Assemble - Freeform, Because ofc he does, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/F, F/M, Gen, Girl Squad - Freeform, Howard Stark's Secrets, I said what I said hehe, Loki (Marvel) Lives, M/M, Medical Experimentation, Multi, Time For A Wedding, Tony Stark Lives, What Happened on Vormir, but not forced kwim?, idk them, the Russos whomst, the post-Snap world, well accidental experimentation, yes the Stones are characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-04
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 40
Words: 107,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22560853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dixiehellcat/pseuds/dixiehellcat
Summary: In the aftermath of Infinity War, the Avengers struggle to pick themselves up and hold earth's survivors up too. Crippled both by her own failure and Thanos' confession, Chrissy Everhart rejects a hero's role and falls back on her words; but as the endgame unfolds and heroes new and old rally to a rematch, her place will be defined by both of her superpowers. Will the universe be unmade, or start anew, and what will happen after?This series is COMPLETE as of Aug. 21 2020!! :)
Relationships: Carol Danvers/Maria Rambeau/James "Rhodey" Rhodes, James "Bucky" Barnes/Christine Everhart, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: Wordsmith [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1071225
Comments: 227
Kudos: 86





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the song Don't Give In by Snow Patrol, a very appropriate sentiment for the mess our characters find themselves in. 
> 
> The first few chapters here are going to cover the period immediately after Thanos' snap, which I for one really wanted to see on screen, but which we ultimately got little if any of. 
> 
> Marvel wasn't very consistent about characters' fates, especially secondary ones--there were several we were told lived, then were told they were snapped, and more we didn't hear word on at all. I'm trying to address everybody who has played a role in the story thus far, one way or another, and some will be different from canon's disposition!

For a few long moments after the truth sank in, that Thanos had with a snap of his fingers made half the beings on earth and every other planet cease to be, nobody in the clearing where he won his victory moved or spoke. Faint cries sounded beyond the glade where we sat, the Avengers and I—no, I was an Avenger too now, for all the fucking good I had done. An occasional explosion shook the ground slightly. I suspected those were Wakandan flyers, now pilotless and crashing to the ground.

Steve finally stood from where he had sat hard in the dirt, by the ash that had been Wanda, beside Vision’s body. He walked slowly over to me and put his hand out. “I don’t know if I can get up,” I said, surprising myself that my voice still worked. “My legs…Thanos broke ‘em, that’s why Bucky was carrying me…” My hand rested in the pile of dust beside the machine gun, all that was left of the man I loved. If Extremis had mended my bones, I didn’t know if I wanted to get up and leave this place. 

There’s this look Steve gets when he knows what to do. I’ve seen it before, though not often, since I had hardly ever been on a field of action, literal or figurative, with him. He got that look now, and knelt beside me. “Okay,” he said with a firm nod that barely contradicted the tremor in his voice. “I—I’ve had the same problem, give me your foot, I can help.”

The understanding penetrated my stunned brain; he was trying to find something, anything, that he could succeed at. And weren’t we all going to be, having failed so utterly? So, as much as I hated being coddled, I let Steve take my foot in his hand. With a gentleness anyone who knew Captain America’s strength would never suspect, he straightened my leg, watching my face intently. I bit my lip, but the pain of a broken limb was gone. After checking the second, he reached out again. 

If this was my punishment for failing to help stop Thanos, that I had to go on living without my beloved, without the man who was like my brother, without so many of my friends, I supposed I might as well pull up my big girl panties and get on with it. I clasped Steve’s hand and let him draw me to my feet.

We made our way back to the main field of battle. I spied my _mambele_ lying discarded, where it had fallen when I had dared to stand between Thanos and his prize. I considered kicking it aside, or leaving it to rot where it lay—well, it wouldn’t rot, since it was vibranium; it would outlast me and everyone else here on this black day. Walking past it, however, wasn’t an option once Clint spotted it. Hawkeye never missed a trick. He swept it up, reversed it and held it out to me grip first as if I were some great knight and not a moron playing at being a hero. He looked as rattled as I felt, though, muttering to himself about finding his cell phone and calling home to check on Laura and their kids, so I just took it from him with quiet thanks and shoved it back into its scabbard on my back as we trudged along.

People were wandering around, finding their fellows or calling out for those they could not find. Just as we stepped out from the brush below the lab onto the shredded ground where we had made our last stand, several loud roars echoed across the barren space. A moment later, the ships that had brought Thanos’ army to earth started rising into the air. “Stop them!” a voice cried.

“It is too late,” came a reply in a voice I knew. I scanned the area until I spotted Okoye. She held herself upright, but the effort it took was obvious; she all but leaned on her spear. “The damage is done. The Black Panther has gone to his ancestors. Let us pray that their line remains.”

Following Steve’s lead, the team started toward a couple of speeders that sat nearby. I wavered, then dashed to Okoye. “ _Titshala_!” I called. Her head turned sharply and her eyes seemed to brighten a bit.

 _“Lomlilo_ , thank Bast you have survived.” She clasped my wrist in a warrior’s greeting, as much as I did not deserve it. “Some of your Avengers live as well, I see. Where is Sergeant Barnes?”

“He’s…he’s gone,” I managed. She drew a breath. “T’Challa—are you sure, Okoye?”

“I saw it. He said, ‘up, general, get up, this is no place to die’ and then, he went to ash, like paper in fire, before my eyes.” I bit my lip, the reality of this nightmare bearing down on me like an oncoming mag-lev train. “I have not located W’Kabi yet, but M’Baku lives. I hope he will aid me in rallying what is left of our forces.” Her gaze went past me, and she nodded. “Your friends await you.”

A glance over my shoulder showed a speeder hovering, piloted by a frantic-looking Aneka. From a passenger seat, Steve watched me with an air of expectation. “You are my friends too,” I said uncertainly. Maybe I should just stay here and help out.

Okoye forced a small, twisted smile. “Wakanda has taken care of itself for a very long time. I think we will manage. Your particular gifts are better employed elsewhere.”

She sure as hell didn’t mean my spectacular failure as a hero, I knew that; but I supposed she was right that my words were going to be needed to try to explain to the world what had happened to it. I wondered, as I obliged my legs to carry me to the speeder, where we would go from here, what we would do with the ruin Thanos had made of the universe.

The Hulkbuster tromped alongside the speeder as we went, its sluggish movements speaking as plainly of Bruce’s mental state as if he had been walking himself. Rhodey buzzed overhead, and my heart caught and shredded like a sleeve on a splintery fence rail on the realization that I was going to have to tell him Thanos had essentially confessed to killing Tony. As awful as that would be, there was one even worse conversation I was doomed to have, if the other person was still alive. 

I squeezed into the carrier beside Steve, gazing blankly and without speaking at the wreckage of the beautiful countryside. Moving carefully so as not to disturb him, I activated a bead on my bracelet that brought up a virtual keypad and typed a quick message. ::Pepper—if you’re ok I know you are busy. I can’t talk rn either. just drop me a quick word? thx::

The text took several seconds to send, an insanely lengthy wait by the standards of Wakanda’s amazing wireless network. It made me sick to think about half the operators, the IT wizards, the tech goddesses who kept the planet connected, vanishing in the blink of an eye. Crap, now that I thought about it, a good chunk of folks raised in various faiths probably thought the long-awaited second coming, or alien rescue, or whatever their particular church anticipated, had happened and they had been left behind. _Yikes, got to remember to address that at the first possible moment, before folk start to go wild._

My beads vibrated and an incoming screen popped up, words in all caps scrolling across. ::OH THANK GOD CHRISSY. PPL ARE GONE. WTF HAPPENED::

I fought back a shudder of relief and kept my emotions firmly in hand. ::Thanos happened. On my way to find out more. Will call asap. So thankful u r ok. Love u sis::

::you too::

I couldn’t conceal what I was doing for long, of course; when I closed the screen, I looked up to find Steve’s eyes on me now instead of the scenery. “Pepper’s okay,” I explained. He looked briefly relieved, and I clung to that look; it was going to have to bear me up through the ordeal of telling him and the other Avengers what I knew that none of them did. 

We stopped outside Shuri’s lab, and the tension in my gut relaxed just a hair to see the princess battered but alive. Ayo was nowhere to be seen, though, and I feared the worst. Aneka jumped out of the driver’s seat almost before the speeder settled and raced over broken glass toward the bare entrance, but Shuri caught her shoulder; a hissed exchange ensued, too fast and low for me to follow other than catching Ayo’s name, and then T’Challa’s. Both women all but collapsed into each other’s arms then, and I dove out to support whoever was closest, which happened to be Aneka. I held on to her, walked her through the wrecked doorway and found the nearest chair to settle her in. All the while I kept talking, not half knowing what I was saying, just something to let her know somebody was there who cared. 

After a minute or two, Aneka sniffled, pulled herself together, and stood to head back to the speeder. “The general ordered me to pilot you safely to your destination, and by all the gods I will finish this job.” A corner of my mind wondered if she was thinking about this assignment the same way I was thinking about the messages that were no doubt choking my in box: that if she could do nothing to save the people of earth, she could at least get this small charge fulfilled.

Shuri’s hand fell on my shoulder. “I have spoken with Okoye, and know what happened. I am about to consult with my mother and start to plan for tomorrow, and however many more tomorrows follow.”

I just nodded. “I’m sorry.” She might never know how much I felt myself to blame. Right now I was running on autopilot, feeling like my head was stuffed full of cotton bolls as I followed Aneka back to the speeder. The only thing I could think of to be thankful for right now, other than the friends who had survived, was that Extremis had either burned itself out in that one desperate shot at Thanos, or had enough cognition to lay low.

I didn’t really register the trip from the lab back down the mountain and over to the royal complex. Aneka took us in half-flying, as though she didn’t want to be seen in the streets of Birmin Zana any more than I did. Every eye that fell on me, through a haze that felt like the worst drunkenness imaginable, seemed to know what I had failed to do.

“Chrissy? Baby girl?”

I came back to myself and found Rhodey leaning in, his hand on my arm and concern on his face. A glance around showed the speeder was parked at the entryway to the palace grounds, empty except for me, and War Machine standing locked nearby. “Hey,” I said.

“Hey.” He summoned a semblance of his usually brilliant smile. “We’re huddling to compare notes, figure out where we go next. C’mon.” For a second I thought I don’t have a place around that table; but the next second, I realized I did. Okoye had said it, my role was what it always had been, to speak for the Avengers. 

I straightened and moved beside Rhodey to catch up with the others, heading for the same meeting place we had used before Thanos’ arrival. My brownout period had covered our arrival and the stashing of the Hulkbuster, because Bruce was at the rear of the pack and greeted Rhodey and me. Nat and Clint were leaning on each other, Clint still mumbling about needing to call home. 

As everyone slumped into chairs, I took a deep breath, sat down, and tapped my beads to pull up a virtual keyboard and screen. “Okay,” I said. “I’m guessing communications outside Wakanda are screwed, but the public needs some information about what the hell just happened. I connected with Pepper briefly on the way here, and yeah, the effects appear to be planet-wide. So, let’s everybody get on the same page, and y’all tell me what you want me to tell everybody who is probably clamoring to know something.”

I didn’t miss the looks that shot around the table and then turned toward me. Maybe I sounded cold, but what had to be done, had to be done, and focusing on that, narrowing my attention to my real job, was the only path I saw to move forward and not collapse. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team compares notes. Chrissy gets back to her 'real' job, and breaks the news about Tony to Pepper and Rhodey, with surprising reactions.

Slowly, with Steve in the lead as usual, people began to share experiences and we started fitting pieces together. Besides those I had myself seen vanish, Rhodey had looked for Sam unsuccessfully, so it was likely he was gone too; likewise Groot, Rocket’s friend (or, from the way the raccoon spoke, more like his adopted son). Every Avenger had gone up against Thanos and been smacked down, by one or another of the Infinity Stones from the sound of it. Only Steve and Thor had held him off for more than a few seconds. I tried to tell myself that put me in good company: cold comfort, that, considering the final outcome. 

Thor looked particularly dazed—after some coaxing, he said he had gotten in a good hit on the purple shit, but he’d gone for center mass like anybody would, only to be taunted by Thanos saying he could only be killed by a blow to his head. _Thanos ran his mouth too damn much,_ I thought. in a novel, that would’ve been his undoing. This wasn’t fiction, though, it was real life, and we had lost. “One of rabbit’s crew,” Thor said with a nod toward Rocket, “was a daughter of Thanos, stolen by him as a child from a world he overran. She told me when all six stones were his, he could halve the universe’s life with a snap of his fingers.” His voice was dull and toneless, not his usual hearty boom. “That’s exactly what he did.”

I asked the questions I would have asked had I still been a reporter, and enlisted my dispirited friends to help me craft the simplest, most accurate answers. None of them seemed inclined to spare themselves blame, but I was and I did. This wasn’t their faults. I had seen it. I knew.

When questions came at me, I shrugged them off. “Bucky fought him hard. He got knocked aside. I got both my legs broken, couldn’t do much after that until they healed.” Nobody pressed me farther. Nat got that look that said she thought there was more, but even she didn’t pursue, which was good. Let her think I was shielding a private moment between myself and Bucky. As much as they all cared for Tony, what Thanos had confessed to me was for Pepper’s ears first, maybe only, depending on her wishes.

Everyone said what they could, and the room grew quiet, unnaturally so, the hubbub of the corridors muted. A knock on the door startled us all, but it was only Ramonda, the queen mother, leading a few of her kitchen staff with food and drink. When she asked if we needed anything else, Clint all but begged for a phone. She gently led him away, while others picked at the provender. “I should try to contact SHIELD, see if Phil’s okay, and Fury and, um, Hill,” Steve murmured.

Thor said something about checking on Jane and Darcy, Rhodey wondered quietly if the comms in his suit were online, and Bruce suggested they take turns using the quinjet’s radio. It was all the opening I needed to escape. “Go, y’all, get your calls made. I, um, need to get into some real clothes, see what condition my condition is in, start reaching out to contacts and pulling stuff together.”

Ignoring Rhodey calling my name, I got out into the hallway and around a corner toward my suite, fighting the urge to break into a run. It seemed to take a week to get to my door. I unslung my harness and let sword and all fall to the floor, pulled off my boots and flung them in a corner, ripped off my uniform and wanted to rip it to shreds. Just looking at the arc reactor-inspired sigil I had worn so proudly, I could hear the monster’s mild voice: _you are with Stark…He fought bravely, your brother. A sister so fierce is a proper one to carry his legacy._

“No,” I whispered. “I’m not.” What on God’s green earth had made me think I could be a hero? What a joke. What a disaster. Half the universe was gone, my beloved was gone, Tony lay dead on some godforsaken planet. I wadded the fabric up and threw it after the boots, went to the sonic shower and scrubbed until I was red all over.

I was hurting, but so was everybody else on earth, so wallowing was not an option. As painful as facing the world to explain their loss was going to be, the things I needed to do before that were worse. Clean at last, I sat on my bed to steel myself, then froze when a whiff of familiar scent rose around me. The bed linens hadn’t been changed, and when I stretched out and sniffed, the smell of Bucky met me. I forced back tears, angry I couldn’t put that scent in a baggie and save it for someday when I had time to hurt properly.

Full night had fallen on the savannah, which meant it was afternoon in Tennessee. I called there first, glad I’d asked Shuri to adapt my kimoyo beads to connect outside Wakanda to the StarkPhones’ satellite network. Several of my relatives had vanished, but my cousin Darlene, and thank heavens, great-aunt Avonelle, were safe. Another knock sounded before I could place another call. Rhodey stood outside, with that patented look of concern. “How you holdin’ up?”

“I’m okay. You didn’t have to come by, but thanks.”

“Couldn’t help it. The way you were sitting in the ride out there…remember when Tony’s arc reactor was making him sick? I went over to his house and he was in his basement, sitting in an old car he was restoring, looking like he was about ready to give up. You…you looked like that, and—I don’t want to make the same mistakes I did back when we dated, being overprotective, but you still mean a lot to me, Chrissy.”

I had to smile. “Same here. Come on in. How’s your family?”

“Talked to mom, she’s ok, and left messages for my sisters. Here’s—here’s hoping.” 

I hugged him and sat down. “I was about to call Pepper, and—you might as well be here too. The fewer times I have to repeat this, the better off I’ll be.” With a quizzical look, he sat down beside me.

Hearing Pepper’s voice was one small island of relief in the hurricane my life had become. Hearing that Happy and May had come through safely helped more. She was equally relieved to talk to Rhodey, until he had to brag about how many aliens I had flambeed. The sudden guilt on his face was enough to provoke a small laugh from me, even under the circumstances. “It’s okay, Rhodey, I need to explain that to Pepper before I go any farther anyway. Cart before horse, and all that.” I confessed what I’d been doing in Wakanda to gain control over Extremis, and how I had wound up in a vibranium jumpsuit swinging a flaming sword alongside battle rhinos and homicidal raccoons. “I…I spoke to Thanos. Not like, striking up a conversation, obviously, but my legs were broken so I wasn’t going anywhere. He…” I dared a glance at the man sitting beside me. “This part you haven’t heard either, Rhodey. I haven’t told the others yet. The uniform Shuri made me, Pepper—here, let me send you a picture, you’ll see what I’m talking about.” 

A few taps with the beads sent it on its way, and we talked while it traveled; but I knew when it arrived from Pepper’s little noise of comprehension. “You made it look like Tony’s suit, a little.”

“Yeah. Kind of obvious, isn’t it?” A sad smile curled around my lips for a beat, before I threw the truth out there. “Thanos saw it too. That’s why he told me, Tony found him, out there, and fought him, and he—he said he killed him, Pep.” There was complete silence, on the line and in the room. Rhodey’s face was blank with shock. “Pepper? Are you okay? Shit. I should’ve waited until I got home, but I thought you deserved to know—Pep?”

“What did he say?” she asked. “Word for word.” I suppressed a shudder, and told her. “He didn’t say he killed him. Maybe he implied it, or maybe not. Chrissy, you aren’t going to take an alien psychopath’s word, are you? Remember the first time I called you, while Tony was in Afghanistan, and asked you to help us with the rumors? Why did I call you, and not some other reporter? Remember?”

“You saw Anderson Cooper interviewing me, and I—I never used the past tense when I talked about Tony.”

“Exactly. You’ve always been the one who wouldn’t give up on him. Don’t give up now. I’m not! We kept the faith when he was gone for months, and he’s only been gone a few days.”

“She’s right,” Rhodey chimed in, finally jolted loose from stunned muteness. “You’re playing down what you did on the battlefield, but I saw you out there. No way you didn’t give that old raisin all he could handle. He’d do or say anything he could to take your head out of the game.”

Sure, they’d be in denial. Sure, I already was. That didn’t mean they might not be right, though. Tony had survived shit that would have killed any other human. I could not give in to despair, fold under my guilt, and take these people so dear to my heart down with me. “A point, dear colonel. Thanks.” No harm would be done by letting them hope a little while longer, whether I did or not.

We talked a few minutes longer. Pepper had the remains of her staff contacting every SI employee and making lists of those lost, so besides the worldwide demand on communication channels that might bring even Tony’s peerless network to a stall, she was going to have to get back to work. It was only midday there, after all. I asked if I needed to find a way back to New York PDQ to help her, but she said she was okay. “Happy hasn’t left my side since it—happened, except to go check on May. I need this, to keep me busy.” I knew the part she left unspoken: _the busier I am, the less I’ll worry about Tony._

I felt the same, and then some, so after she hung up and I sent Rhodey off to get some rest, I went to my office, started coffee, and set to work. As anticipated, my in box was overflowing with demands for information, requests for comment, and cries for help. AvengersOnline had crashed, and the internet in general was glitchy, although some servers seemed to be handling the strain better than others. It wasn’t quite a repeat of events like 9/11, when cell phone networks had collapsed. I drowned in answering emails, writing and sending out press releases, scheduling a briefing, and calling every number on my contact list. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Pepper got through again. “Chrissy, StarkComm’s apparently functioning better than the US government—”

“Small surprise there,” I snarked.

“True. Anyway, I talked to Phil! He’s okay, but he’s been trying to contact Steve. Fury and Maria—they’re gone—” It hit harder than I expected, though I was thrilled Phil was safe. “He found their car, tracked it with his spy goodies, and he’s found something. He didn’t say what, and I didn’t ask, but he needed to give it to Steve so I told him where the team was. I hope that was okay.”

“Absolutely. Steve was worried about them, so he’ll be glad to get word. If he’s trying to get here in a SHIELD quinjet, he’ll need some special directions and help. I have a friend in ground control—if she’s still here, oh gosh, I’ll have to find out. Lord, please let Cebise be okay! Anyway, I’ll let Steve know and I’ll give her the heads up so they’re ready.”

In another small blessing, Cebise was alive and comforting her sister, so I took only a moment to explain the situation before sending her back to Aneka and diving back into the tasks at hand. I rode the hit-or-miss connections, dropping as much info through social media as I felt safe doing and promising a full account as soon as things got stable enough. Translation software was my new BFF, so I could post in most major languages. About halfway through my third pot of coffee, I came up for air and registered a couple of things: the night outside the window had melted into a new day, and Nat was standing across the room watching me. “Hey,” I greeted her with a flip of my hand, my attention on a new batch of emails that had been dumped into my box during the last spell of good service.

“Have you slept?”

“Have you?” I countered.

If Nat were the sighing type, she would have sighed, I knew it. “Team’s meeting to update each other from last night. C’mon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think Nat would ever say this, but when she walked into Chrissy's office there at the end, I know she was thinking that Chrissy is at times as much like Tony as if they actually were blood relatives. Like him, she never intended to be a hero; she did what she had to do the best she could do; and she buries herself in work when she felt she had failed.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers meet, Chrissy checks on the farm, and Phil Coulson brings something meant to help.

Reports were mixed. Thor had talked to Darcy and found out Jane was dusted. I shared the same news about Fury and Maria via Pepper, then braced myself, and told them what Thanos had said to my face about Tony. They took it about as well as one might expect, which is to say, not well at all, though Rhodey made the same argument he had to me, that we couldn’t expect a megalomaniac to tell the truth if it stood between him and his goal.

Rocket, of all folk, disagreed. “Gamora always said her old man was a lot of shitty things, but he never lied. Now, that’s not to say he couldn’t work around the truth. Like the trooper there said,” he nodded toward Rhodey, “Thanos didn’t say right out he offed your bro, but he didn’t say he didn’t either. I’m just sayin’, be prepared.” 

Needless to say, it wasn’t easy to read his animal-like face, but the tension around his eyes looked like he expected to be yelled at. So, instead, I sighed and nodded. “We’ve been preparing, or trying to, on some level for that for a long time, buddy. Thanks.”

At least Bruce had a good word—he had spoken with Helen. “Where’s Clint?” he asked.

Nat shook her head. “After the queen mother got him phone access, she stepped out to give him privacy. She checked back a few minutes later, and he was gone.”

“Damn.” Steve already looked exhausted and stretched thin, and this wasn’t helping. “How—never mind, it’s Clint. If anybody could sneak out of Wakanda, it’s him. He didn’t tell anybody if Laura and the kids were all right?” The silence answered his question. His broad shoulders slumped, more weight on them now than even Captain America should have to bear. He scrubbed a hand over his beard. “Okay. Nat, leave him a message, if you haven’t already. Phil’s on his way here with something he wants us to see; we’ll sit tight until then. Scare up some eats, see if we can do anything to help here.”

I had another concern, and excused myself quietly. Bucky’s goats needed tending, and I needed space. There were no friends at loose ends who could spare time to take me out, so with a rolled bundle under my arm, I walked the back ways to the outskirts of the Golden City, then broke into a run. Extremis hadn’t flared, but the speed and endurance it gave me was still here.

Few birds circled or chirped, and when I arrived at Bucky’s, I was horrified to find several goats just gone and the rest bleating and upset, milling around their little paddock. The village was too quiet; no children played outside. I dreaded going over there; explaining what had happened to people I knew was going to be orders of magnitude harder than standing in front of the world’s cameras. They probably wanted to take it out on me, and I was halfway inclined to let them, if it wasn’t for those duties I had yet to complete.

They didn’t, of course. I hugged everybody left, it felt like, and all the kids, and assured them that their princess was on top of things. If a way could be found to fix what the bad man from space had done, she would find it. Till then, all I asked was if they could help care for the farm. Frankly, I would have traded what was left of earth to hide out here, but I had only one true superpower, the one Tony had always ascribed to me, and now it was needed more than ever.

I held myself together while we fed and watered the goats, checked their hooves, and gave them some treats to munch. Once I sent the little ones back home (where their understandably anxious parents were watching and waiting) I went into the cottage. Bucky’s trousers lay on the packed dirt floor where he had kicked them off in his haste to kit out for battle. The shirt he had been wearing, an old favorite of his, was tossed carelessly across the bed we had built together, when I refused to stay in the complex full-time and he refused to let me sleep on the ground. I scooped up the shirt and sat on the woven mat beside the bed, and let the tears come.

The bundle was staying here. I was tempted to hack the suit to shreds with the sword, vibranium against vibranium, and then bury the whole shebang. Every look at either one only broke my heart all over again. They were gifts, though, and for all that those are yours to do with what you will, I was raised that disrespecting a gift disrespects the giver. So I poked them under the bedstead, as far back as they would go, and stayed there on my knees for a while, unable to find words to pray, just letting my soul scream.

Finally, I stood, brushed bits of grass and crumbs of goat chow off my knees, and started back for the city. Carrying nothing now, I let my legs stretch and the wind whip my hair and face, and ran flat out as hard as I could.

A little speeder approached and dipped from its low flight altitude. It swept around in an arc till it faced the way I was going and paced me. To my surprise, Steve was behind the stick. “I don’t remember you being that fast.”

“I wasn’t.” We both halted. “Once I quit fighting Extremis, things fell into place.”

“Hm. Goats okay?”

“Goats are good. Hear from Phil yet?”

“He got here. Couldn’t stay long, he’s got a lot on his plate, so he was just leaving when I came this way. He brought a little gizmo—Rhodey calls it a pager, but Phil says it’s souped up with alien tech. Fury had it, to call for help.”

“From who? Or what?”

“A—and these are Phil’s words, understand, not mine—‘noble warrior hero’.” Steve’s ironic expression mirrored mine, no doubt. “Of course, then he laughed and said ‘she’s kind of a goofball, you’ll like her’, so, who knows, really. Anyway, whoever it is’ll follow the pager’s tracking signal, which is why he wanted it with us.”

“Cool,” I said and perched on the lip of the speeder beside him. “Till then, we need to keep moving. Mind giving me a ride back to town? I have got a butt-ton of work to do and no time to lollygag around.”

Steve turned an unexpectedly gentle look my way. “Chris.”

“What?”

“Chris. Bucky always said you tried so hard to help everybody else, you never paid attention to your own feelings. It’s okay to hurt.” 

“Steve. I can’t very well deny I’m hurting, but I don’t intend to flop around in it either. The rest of the world—and every other world, from all indications—is hurting. You’re hurting.” I reached into the speeder and put my hand over his on the steering control.

“I lost the woman I thought I’d marry," he said after a few moments, "and the whole world that I knew. Then I woke up seventy years later, and tried to start making another life. Thought, maybe I wouldn’t lose people again, or at least, maybe I’d get used to it. Now…I lost Sam, and the twins. I watched Bucky die a second time. Tony’s out there someplace, and maybe Petey, and it’s like Bucky, I can’t even give ‘em a decent burial if they're—” His voice cracked. “I don’t know if you knew, Nat did, maybe others suspected, but Hill and me…we had a thing, you call it ‘friends with benefits’ now, but I wish I’d had the courage to ask for more. It comes to a point where…you aren’t sure how much more you can stand to lose.”

Only the distant noises from the village and the lap of the lake’s crystalline waters filled in the silence. “You’re using second person pronouns,” I said finally.

Steve let out a small, damp chuckle. “Dr. Rausch calls me on that too. She tells me to, ahem, ‘own my shit’. I’m owning it, then, and you need to do the same.” He squeezed my hand. “We’ll all hurt together, and hold each other up together. Just, you’re an Avenger, Chris. You were an Avenger before you went into battle with us, and you always will be, no matter what has happened or will. Don’t run and hide from us. Promise me you won’t.”

“Okay,” I said quietly. “I promise. Same goes for you though, Steve. Just because you’re Captain America and you’ve got those freaking gigantor shoulders doesn’t mean you have to carry every dang thing on them. Deal?”

“Deal.” He patted my hand. “Now, let’s get back to the complex. Bruce was hovering over the pager, looking way too interested. Somebody’s got to make sure he doesn’t start trying to disassemble it.”

“Let’s just keep him and Shuri from double-teaming it before Phil’s friend shows up.”

We climbed into the speeder—Steve said he’d asked the queen mother if somebody could bring him out here, and instead she had detailed an injured member of the Dora Milaje to show him how to pilot it himself. “If this’ noble warrior hero’ is a space traveler, she might have some ideas about where Thanos would have gone,” he said as he steered carefully through the streets of the Golden City, not nearly as crowded as usual, but still populated enough to get us a number of uncertain looks. “We could get to him and—I dunno, make him reverse what he did? Or at the very least…make him pay.”

“Take it out of his hide?” A bitter half-laugh slipped from me. “Tony said that once, to Loki. He told me that when Thanos’ Chitauri invaded, he told Loki if y’all couldn’t defend earth, he could be damn sure you would avenge it.”

“Sounds like Tony. Did Wanda ever tell you she thought he might be psychic?”

“Oh Lord hon, she told him that to his face one time. I thought his head was gonna explode.”

We actually laughed together, for just a second, as Steve parked the speeder outside the complex entrance. “I feel like I oughta be praying,” he said suddenly, “but I don’t know what to say.”

“Me neither,” I told him. “I don’t think we have to know what to say. Although I do know one thing, I’m not saying _thy will be done_ , because I won’t accept that wiping out half the life in the universe is, by any stretch of anybody’s imagination, divine will. It’s wrong, it’s evil, and we have to do everything we can to mend what that evil broke. that's what I'm praying for, the strength to stand and rebuild. Not just for you or me or the Avengers, but everybody who's left.”

That was my goal, anyway, and I all but ran back into the complex to get back to work on it. in the meeting space that had been adopted as Avengers Central, Bruce was examining the pager, as Steve had warned. Tech not being his strong suit, he had roped Rhodey in to help, but thank heavens they hadn’t dissected it (yet). It was a curious gizmo; instead of showing a phone number on its small old-fashioned screen, it showed a small graphic of an eight-pointed star.

Bruce had more interesting news to share—the survivors of our science pack, unsurprisingly, were jumping headlong into analyzing what had been done to us. Helen, from her lab in Seoul, was already hip deep in data, he said, figuring out exactly how far down the food chain Thanos’ strike had gone. “Domestic and wild animals and birds, we know they were halved like we were, and plants don’t seem to be affected, but what about insects, or bacteria?” he raved, waving his hands. _Or viruses_ , I thought with a sudden secret chill, realizing Extremis might have been halved in me and no longer active. I had never wanted it, and prayed to be free of it, but this was not the path I had had in mind.

While Bruce ranted and Rhodey tried to rein him in, Shuri stepped in, grave-faced but with a stack of documents. “I have been meeting with the Queen Mother and the Tribal Council, and they have agreed that as a group, with her and myself leading, we can lead Wakanda forward. My time will be occupied thus, obviously, but I have already begun to research what might be done to reverse the snap. Christine, I will send you any information you may need to share with the world via our kimoyo, but for the less advanced,” she gave Bruce a look with a hint of her usual cheekiness, “I have kicked it old school.” 

She handed him the files she held with a slight nod, then departed, leaving him open-mouthed. “I know she’s a kid but I think I’m in love,” he breathed. Nat leaned in from her seat in a corner, poked him and made him yelp, spin and glare at her, though with no anger. That was good to see; they had seemed tense around each other when they first arrived…damn, was it really only hours ago?

The byplay relaxed the team, though, and a few other concerns were raised. For one, Thor still had no idea how he had left earth with me only fighting reporters, and returned to find me in combat, so I had to catch him up as I had Bruce before the attack. He understood immediately, when I explained the connection to my link with the Mind Stone that Loki had probed. That done, I left them all to discuss and debate their own issues, and returned to the only job I could safely perform.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Along with all the other things in this timeline that diverge from any form of canon, this chapter obviously indicates a pretty different sequence of events in AoS. Specifically, (spoiler alert if you have not watched Agents of SHIELD and plan to) the injuries Coulson suffered that led to his death in canon AoS did not happen in the Wordsmith verse. His and his team's actions will be different going forward as well...watch for them later in this story. And you all know, I daresay, what the mysterious pager's purpose is!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy holds the first press briefing since the snap, and later struggles with her emotions. An old love provides a shoulder, and a new ally appears!

A few more bits of good news, sparks of light in the dark, greeted me in my voicemail. Several acquaintances I’d left messages for had returned them, proof of life from a couple of friends in California, my old Vanity Fair editor Will, and my lawyer Foggy. Those messages brought word of other lost, though, like Will’s husband, Dr. Rausch, and Foggy’s partner Matt; others, including Maya, had not replied at all. I’d hoped I could enlist her help in Helen’s project to determine the parameters of the disaster Thanos had dropped on us. With a gulp, another thought came to me. _I hope her parole officer doesn’t think she’s skipped!_

That was one small thing I could clear up fairly quickly. The communication channels were moving a little better, so with a little effort and sweet talk, I was able to track down a contact and explain the situation. So, that was how the first civilian on earth who knew the basic facts regarding the snap, and was sworn to secrecy about it until my press briefing, ended up being a social worker named Clarice in Waukegan, Wisconsin.

The blast email notifying the media of an Avengers press briefing went out, scheduled for late afternoon New York time, the middle of the night in Wakanda. To the rest of the world the timing might seem American-centric, but really it was meant to keep the actual location of the battle and the team under wraps for the moment, and I’d post the recording for everybody else’s reference later anyway. Once I made notes for my public statement, I tweaked them into blog posts for the team’s official social media accounts.

The list of signed-up media participants wasn’t huge, which puzzled me for a moment, until it hit me that half of them, roughly, were likely no longer with us. Not sure if I could hold up, I launched the platform, gave them time to log on, and began. “The war criminal Thanos launched an attack on earth, leading a massive army and using several powerful artifacts, in an attempt to steal another artifact held here. An inclusive force including the Avengers met them and held them off with numerous casualties…” I caught myself as my voice began to shake. As the team’s representative, my demeanor reflected on them. “Those of you based out of New York will remember the Chitauri attack of 2012. I can tell you, this assault was orders of magnitude greater. The defenders of earth were overwhelmed. Thanos’ stated intent was to resolve overpopulation on inhabited planets, but I think we can all agree that—that deleting half the sentient life forms was the act of an obsessive megalomaniac.

“The location of Thanos, and the artifacts he used to power his attack, are unknown at this time, but the surviving Avengers want earth to know they will continue to fight for you. The greatest remaining minds are working as we speak on determining the extent of the damage, and looking into ways to address it, possibly even reverse it.” A hubbub of startled and excited voices rose in answer to that. “I can’t promise anything! Other than everyone’s best efforts, to their last breaths. One other thing I want all of you to remember, and please share with the world—we are all in this together. We are all each other has now. I know people say that all the time, but look around you, wherever you are, if you see another human, they just lost somebody. Everyone has lost somebody they value. Please support each other.”

I steeled myself to get ripped to shreds, and opened the mics for questions. There were plenty, but not much anger. That was surprising, or maybe not. Maybe it was too soon, and everybody was still numb. I made it clear I wasn’t releasing the names of Avengers lost in the battle or the snap (and I did explain why I called it that), and turned away questions about Iron Man’s pursuit team with a simple statement that we had no verifiable intel about their status. After a few additional comments (no, this was not the rapture; yes, check on people in your orbit; don’t assume someone has ghosted you, when they might have been snapped away) it was over.

On the whole, it went unexpectedly well, and I promised an update in person soon. With Extremis inactive, I hoped it was safe to return to the US. If not, I’d make a contingency plan to always be near a place where I’d only cook myself if it went wild, and no one else. The Hulk room had served nicely, before, as a fire-safe space; but Bruce might be coming back, so I needed to work out other options.

Outside, another spectacular Wakandan sunset was fading. Night here was darker than any I had seen since leaving my parents’ farm for college. Suddenly, I needed some time alone, under that matchless sky. I slipped down the passages of the complex, desolate in a way they had never been before, and out the back doors again. The lights of the city were less, and I turned and ran from them, out across the savannah, until I stopped outside that familiar little hut. I should have been exhausted, but within a few minutes, I regained my breath. Still hadn’t really decided if I loved or hated that. 

I slipped through the door-drape into the silent, chill darkness of the hut, followed the smoothly polished mud wall around to a particular storage niche, and retrieved a pottery jug of moonshine. If it did nothing more, it might let me wind down enough to sleep a few hours. Even though I wasn’t especially tired, it would catch up to me eventually. I sat with my back to the wall, closed my eyes, dark to dark, and imagined the interior warm with an oil lamp’s light, Bucky’s eyes glinting as he leaned in to steal a kiss and the jug.

About halfway through the jug, the walls and memories started to suffocate me. I wobbled outside and down to the pond’s edge, set the jug down with all the exaggerated care of early inebriation, and flopped onto my back to stare up at the thickly layered vision of the stars and galaxies. Somewhere near one of those uncountable dots of light, people I cared about might be, living or not. _Wrap them in your love, God, wherever they are. Tony, Peter, Stephen…the Cloak even…Thanos’ rebel daughter, Gamora, was that her name? and Rocket’s other friends…_

I thought I imagined the sound of repulsors drawing near, and wondered how I had gotten that far gone on only half a jug of moonshine. When a shadow passed overhead, I realized I wasn’t imagining anything vividly enough to blot out the stars. Like an ironclad angel, War Machine eased down to the ground, and Rhodey stepped out. “Hi,” he said. “Everybody’s sacked out, I got stuck on pager watch, and it’s boring.” 

No wonder he and Tony were brothers; among so many other things, both had low tolerance for boredom. With a watery grin I patted the ground beside me. “Come keep me company then. I’ve got to get back to work in a little while but we’ve got time to chill. Can you drink, or are you technically on duty?”

He took the jug and sniffed at the mouth. A giggle escaped me at the way his eyes bulged. “You drink this shit?” he demanded. “I think it could run the suit!”

“Bucky and I share it. Between his house-brand super soldier serum, and my, uh, little something extra, it takes…took…takes a lot to get either of us buzzed.”

“Need to get Tones to analyze that stuff. Might be a nice bio-version of rocket fuel.” He sat next to me, sniffed again, then took a swig. Watching a full-bird colonel and superhero gasp a little as the shine went down was excellent distraction, for a few seconds anyway.

“Rocket’s right, you know,” I said, looking away from him and back up to the silent stars. “We have to be ready to deal with the thought that Tony might not make it home this time. I’m not giving up, and I’m not saying this to Pep, but—”

“Then don’t.” Rhodey’s voice roughened. “Do you know, when Tony was in Afghanistan, a general called me on it, asked me if I was willing to risk my career when we had no indication he was alive. I said yessir. He said ‘then I have one thing to say to you’, and I knew he was going to say stop, and I didn’t know how I was going to cope with having to defy a direct order from a superior officer. But—maybe he saw something, in my eyes or whatever, because he just said ‘godspeed’ and got back in his jeep, hollered ‘as you were’ and drove off. And that, that was the day, that was the run when we found Tony. So, no, not gonna give up, not until I see—” 

He choked a little and I hugged him. “Remember the day he gave you the first War Machine?” I asked.

“Not likely to ever forget that.” He gave a shaky little laugh. “For a lot of reasons, not the least of which was DUM-E spilling smoothie all over you and you having to change in the workshop bathroom while Tony made fun of me for being horny for you.”

“Well, of course he did,” I shook my head. “He told me that day, he never intended to become Iron Man. I’m sure you know that though, right? Building the suit was his thing, but piloting it—he wanted you. Never did say why he changed his mind.”

“He didn’t,” Rhodey said, so softly I could barely hear him over the rising wind and the soft bleats of Bucky’s diminished herd. “I changed it. He came to me. Didn’t tell me what he was working on, only that it was something big, and not a weapon. I wasn’t tryin’ to hear that, not then. Told him to come back when he had his head on straight, which to me meant, making weapons again. I…I had said before, I knew he could do more, do better, but I guess I was afraid to see how fast he had changed. He wasn’t the guy I went to Afghanistan with, and maybe a part of me wondered if he was still the friend I’d known.”

“Dumbass,” I said, swatted him, took another swig, and plonked my head on his shoulder. “He’s always been your friend, and he’s never gonna stop.”

“I know,” he whispered. “I know. I just want him to come home so I can tell him I know.”

I laced my fingers through his, lifted our joined hands to my face and kissed his knuckles. He turned, and our eyes met, and the air crackled with such electricity I thought for a second Extremis was slipping its leash. No matching heat rose elsewhere in me, though, and Rhodey gently pulled his hand away. “Let’s not go there, Chrissy. I’ve learned, the hard way, not to try to impose on you my idea of what you ought to want, but if we’re gonna hold on to belief that Tony’s coming home, we need to hold on to belief we can get everybody home. Shuri’s working on it, and I don’t know about you but I am never gonna bet long green against that little genius. And I do know you well enough to know if we did anything at all, you’d feel guilty when Barnes got back. I’d give you whatever you need, baby girl, you know it, but I’d never want to set you up for that.”

I snorted, mostly to keep back the tears that threatened to burst loose again. “Damn it, Rhodey, I love Bucky so much and if we can’t find some way…I don’t know if I can ever get past seeing him dissolve into dust…”

He hugged me tight, and we sat for a bit in silence broken only by that infernal wind that felt almost as staticky as that moment of choice earlier. “Guess I better get back to town. I don’t have a magic bracelet to take my calls, and if somebody gets up for a drink of water they’re gonna wonder where this little gadget went.” He pulled it from his pants pocket and gulped. “It’s stopped broadcasting. Shit. Maybe the battery’s dead!” Rhodey scrambled to his feet, but before he could even take a step toward War Machine, a blinding flash of light streaked across the sky. 

I jumped up, the last of the alcohol burning out of my system like I’d taken a match to it. There wasn’t time to run and hide (like that’d do any good anyway) or even to run for my sword. Even as I froze, a familiar rush of heat prickled the back of my neck and my fingertips. Extremis was here, I could feel it, if I had the courage to use it. 

The spot of light swept around in a wide arc above us, then dropped to earth. No blast sounded though, only the crunch of pond gravel beneath a pair of boots. They belonged to a slim blonde woman in a fitted uniform, red and blue with the gold star emblem from the pager’s window on its front. The wind that had been rising tossed her long hair once and then died down. “Where’s Fury?” she demanded, looking from one of us to the other. 

I clenched my fists at my sides, telling Extremis to lay low, holding it in reserve until we knew who or what we faced. Rhodey, God love him, kept his cool just like always. “Gone,” he said. “Dusted like half the universe. You must be Coulson’s friend. He gave us this, told us Fury called you and you’d follow the signal.” He held out the dead pager, then cocked his head slightly when she turned her full attention to him. “Do I know you?”

That seemed unlikely, but then she looked right at him, and her mouth fell open. “Jim??”

“Carol?” he said at almost the same time.

“Um…” I actually fidgeted a little. “So, y’all do know each other?”

“He’s my ex,” the woman said, and I laughed out loud.

“No shit?” I said. “So am I. Nice to meet you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rhodey's story about the run-in with the general is in the Iron Man novel, and I think actually exists on film as a deleted scene.
> 
> I spent half a morning looking dates and places up to see if it was feasible for Rhodey and Carol to have dated. YES IT IS. LOL. According to canon, Rhodey was born 1968. In the Wordsmith verse, he graduated high school a year early, in 1985, and went to the Air Force Academy that fall—you can get in at 17. He graduated in 1989 and went to MIT for his master's in engineering, earning a grad school slot and scholarship due to his academic excellence at the AF Academy. I know lots of fics have him and Tony meet in undergrad, but you have to acknowledge his military training in your timeline to be realistic. SO--he met Tony, who was by that time age 19 and probably working on his first graduate degree. 
> 
> Carol was born in 1965, graduated high school in 1983 and the Air Force Academy in 1987—the first class that included women graduated in 1980. She and Rhodey could have crossed paths in school, between 1985 and 1987, but i prefer the idea (because let's face it, y'all who have been to college, you know seniors don't date sophomores very often) that while they could have become acquainted at the academy, they didn't date until later. 
> 
> Air Force Academy students do summer internships at space-related sites, some a few weeks long and some the whole summer, so the joint NASA/Air Force base where Project Pegasus was based would fit that bill. (Incidentally, cadets do internships in their junior and senior years, and some are at space or military industries, which means in theory, Rhodey could have also done an internship at Stark Industries, and first met Tony there during Tony's summer break from MIT, thus setting him up to eventually become the Pentagon liaison to SI, but that's a whole 'nother AU. hehe)
> 
> So anyway, in this verse, Rhodey and Carol ran into each other at that base, in the summer of 1988, and dated till he went back to school that fall. They stayed in touch for a while, in hopes of reconnecting the following summer after Rhodey graduated, but then she supposedly died.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers and Carol Danvers meet and share intel. Chrissy plays matchmaker, Shuri volunteers as cat-sitter with unanticipated results, and the lab squad finds a frightening clue to Thanos' whereabouts.

Yes, Phil and Fury’s ‘noble warrior hero’ turned out to have started her journey as Carol Danvers, a pilot who Rhodey met and dated one summer while doing an internship at a joint Air Force/NASA base where she was stationed flying experimental aircraft. Rhodey quickly sketched out the situation, and we escorted her back to the Golden City. I wanted to run and let them fly and get reacquainted, but time was of the essence, so I rode with War Machine and used my kimoyo to call ahead and roust the team.

In our meeting space, Rhodey and I made introductions all around. The only thing that widened Carol’s eyes was meeting Steve and being assured that yes, he was the Captain America we all read about in our grade school history books. He used to blush at stuff like that; right now, he just offered a tired smile. “You think that’s something,” Rhodey poked her, “I’m gonna need to hear how you look just like you did in 1988. I heard you _died_.”

“Yeah, well, those rumors were exaggerated, to put it mildly. We’ll catch up on backstories later though—I want to know where that suit of yours came from!” Rhodey winced and I squeezed his shoulder in sympathy. “Work first,” she said more briskly to the room, and quickly let us know what was going on in the rest of the universe, as various people chimed in with their own parts that fit with her intel. _Universe? Like, she knows the whole shebang?_ I thought with a blink. Most inhabited planets, she said, were reeling as earth was, maybe more so in some cases. Planets that relied on off-world commerce were in worse shape, so weirdly enough, our own insularity and tech limitations had kept us self-contained, but would help keep us self-reliant too. 

“Only a few entities were strong enough to go up against Thanos,” she said, “and they’re done in. Asgard imploded, from what you say,” she nodded toward Thor’s dispirited slump, “and Thanos took the Nova Corps down—they’re a space police force, essentially—when he invaded Xandar, their base planet, and killed half their population outright.”

“The Corps held the Power Stone there,” Thor murmured. 

“Have you crossed paths with him?” Nat asked her. 

She shook her head. “I’m looking for him now though, needless to say.”

“When you find him,” Steve said, “we’ll go with you. We’d like a shot at getting the Stones and maybe bringing everybody back.”

“Get in line,” she said with a snort, then softened at the anguished looks all around. “If anybody would be of help though, it’d be you guys. Okay, you’re in. I’m going to catch my breath, check on some folks here on earth, then I’m off again. I’ve got to touch base with a lot of other planets, too. Most of them don’t have Avengers, you know. As shitty as things seem right now, earth’s in relatively good shape.”

“Carol?” I said cautiously. “Could you keep an eye out for some of our friends? They went after Thanos, and we haven’t heard back. He…claimed he killed one of them.”

“Sure,” she promised. “If your friends went to Titan, Thanos’ old home planet, I’ll shoot out there and check, work my way back along the main travel lanes in case they escaped and headed back this way.”

“Yeah, and while you’re cruising the skyways,” Rocket added, “I’ll appreciate if you could watch for my, um, pals, and our ship. ‘s a class M, called the Benatar.”

She agreed, and looked about to say more, until Bruce’s head drooped and he nearly slid off his perch on the edge of a small table. “Enough," she declared. "Back to bed, everybody. Sorry to land on you in the middle of the night.” Nat and Rhodey steered Bruce out and everybody else followed suit. 

”Carol, do you need anything?” I asked her. “I’ve been here longest so I know where to go to rustle you up a meal, shower, nap space, whatever.”

“Hopefully I can get the shower and nap when I get where I’m going. I could use a refueling stop, though.” We stepped out into the corridor. “Aren’t you turning in?”

“I’ve got some more work to do, since it’s still daylight in the US. Calls to make and what have you. It’s not like I could sleep right now anyway. C’mon, I’ll walk you to the nearest kitchen.”

Carol narrowed her eyes. “You have something. A power. You didn’t speak about it, though.”

I shrugged. “Got exposed to a virus, then it got exposed to another Infinity Stone. Upshot of the whole thing, I…sometimes I can manifest fire? Not consistently or always in control, so I’m just keeping it under wraps. Mainly, I’m a little faster and stronger, and can stay awake without coffee a little longer. Not that Wakandan coffee isn’t amazing, because it is, but...”

We laughed quietly together. “Is that why you and Jim broke up?” she asked.

I shook my head. “Rhodey means the world to me. He’s just a little too protective for my comfort.”

With a wry smile, she confided, “That might be partly my fault. The accident that gave me my powers wound up with me missing and presumed vaporized, according to the SHIELD file Fury stole. I flatter myself, I guess, by thinking Jim missed me enough to go out of his way to keep people he cared about safe, after that. He’s always been like that, though. He’s a great guy.” I nodded. “So you two aren’t…”

“Nope. I have a lover, well I did, and hope to get him back, with everybody else, if there’s any way to.” I leaned in. “Remember Captain America?” Carol bobbed her head. “I’m sure you read in school like everybody did, about his right-hand guy?”

“Bucky Barnes! I kind of had a thing for him, in middle school.”

“Hands off,” I warned, and she gaped, then giggled. 

“This I’ve gotta see. More motivation to kick Thanos’ ass and get those stones back.” We chatted lightly as we walked. Carol looked around and marveled. “Once we get the current mess straightened out, I want some time to look around this place! It’s amazing. Earth’s finally started catching up to other civilizations. The tech here in—Wakanda, you said?—could give the Kree Empire a run for their money.” The dining area was sadly quiet, only a few staff and night workers eating. Carol didn’t have strong preferences, other than feeling the need for some protein, so I suggested their delicious curried chicken stew. My sweet tooth decided to act out, so I grabbed a cup of my favorite sweet potato pudding and sat with her. While she plowed through the stew and flatbread, I briefly hit the highlights of my past, my job, and how I had found myself here. “So,” she said while scraping her bowl, “this Tony, he made Jim’s suit? And he’s the one Thanos claimed to have killed.” I bit my lip and nodded. “And he’s why you call Jim Rhodey.”

“Yeah, we met through Tony, and his fiancée Pepper. That’s a whole other story, which I can bore you with someday, I hope, preferably with Tony here to be his usual pseudo-obnoxious self and complain that I’m not telling it right, even though I am.”

“We’ll plan on it,” she grinned. “I’d better move. Tell Jim I’ll come back this way before I leave earth again, would you?”

I did, though not until morning—Rhodey needed what rest he could get as much as anybody. “I like her,” I told him then. “So be warned, I will play matchmaker. I’m tickled to death for you two to have a second chance, since it sounds like the only thing that screwed up the first one was her getting zapped by an Infinity Stone and whisked off into space! Plus, she can make you behave, as much as any woman could, I guess.”

Somewhere that afternoon, Nat came back to my office and put her foot down. “Chris, you don’t have to channel Tony and try to stay awake until we get word on him, or a path forward. Even Extremis is only going to carry you so far. Go the fuck to sleep.”

Nobody, but nobody, who values their life argues with the Black Widow, even if she is one of your best friends. I went to bed, planning to let my body relax a spell, while my brain turned over future goals, pieced together a statement for Asian news outlets, or worried about why we hadn’t heard from Clint. That was an admirable intention, but my brain wasn’t having it. I woke up fourteen hours later, to a concerned Shuri with wrap sandwiches in hand and a big orange tabby cat at her feet. “We thought you might have fallen into a coma,” she explained. “This is Goose. She is Captain Danvers’ cat, who her friend has been caring for while she was busy flitting around in the ether. He is gone, and her family is busy, from her report, so I stepped up as cat-sitter. Bast would approve, I think.”

I couldn’t have agreed more, although Shuri did have a moment of pause when Thor walked into her lab later that day and yelped, “By Odin’s one eye, it’s a flerken!” We all wondered for a hot minute whether Carol knew her kitty cat was actually an intelligent and near-extinct alien species that, according to Thor, spat poisonous tentacles and could eat anything human-sized or smaller. Then Rhodey, voice of reason as ever, sighed, “Of course she knows, she’s Carol,” and everybody said _yeah, you’re right_ , and went on about their business. Shuri’s hesitation evaporated that afternoon when M’Baku gave her grief about some policy thing, and Goose ate his war club. It was entertainment we seriously needed.

Juggling her past and present positions didn’t let Shuri get much rest either over the next few days. She and Bruce had hit it off immediately, so she ceded her research space to him, for what we all hoped was a short time, and he flung himself in half a dozen directions. For one thing, Hulk still refused to emerge, even when Bruce got absolutely livid. From what Thor told us, Hulk had taken Thanos on and been badly beaten, so I secretly wondered if he was scared or embarrassed. 

Bruce certainly was ashamed; he verbally kicked himself in every conversation for being unable to change when Hulk was needed most, but he shoved that aside to focus on more pressing needs. One of those was a need for Shuri herself, and her country. A rare herb grown only in Wakanda’s vibranium-rich soil bestowed the powers of the Black Panther upon its rulers, but it had been destroyed by their cousin who had tried to seize power a couple of years before. Wild patches were said to grow high in the mountains of the Jabari, but neither she nor what was left of the royal infrastructure had time to seek them out, so Bruce set out to synthesize the active ingredients based on scans and data local scientists had saved. It was another project we all hoped wouldn’t be urgently needed—we all hoped for a way to bring T’Challa back to his people and throne—but as the first numbness of shock wore off, murmurings of concern began to rise, about how Wakanda would fare with a very young _de facto_ queen who didn’t have the means to be spiritual leader too. 

I felt I had to help my young friend in this hard time too, so I offered to write statements or whatever they needed to bolster people’s confidence here. That determination gave me something else to hold on to, to keep my brain busy and away from the pain; but the queen mother turned me down with her usual grace. “I don’t mean to sound like I don’t think you can take care of your own business, your highness,” I told Ramonda earnestly. “I haven’t been much good at helping, I know, but I just care about all of y’all.”

“That’s understood,” she said, her tone gentle yet firm. “We know your offer comes from a good heart, but I think you are more needed with your people.”

She was right, I supposed. I could do a lot of my job from anywhere, but sooner or later I was going to have to face the world I felt I had failed. Right now, Rhodey was stepping up and becoming a more visible face for the Avengers. He had been recalled to action by the Pentagon, and for the moment was flying missions in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. (He said it beat the hell out of another option he’d been offered—the US Vice-President was among the snapped, and the President had asked, seriously, if Rhodey would consider filling that post. Rhodey had, as he described it, put on his best regretful expression and declined.)

That public face of the heroes of earth, even in defeat, or maybe especially in defeat, was desperately needed. Steve and Thor both seemed crushed. Thor rarely even left the suite he had been given, and Steve had spent most of the days since Carol’s departure at Bucky’s farm. Nat stayed busy, working with Okoye and the remnant of the Dora Milaje, bonding with Nakia (I had hoped to introduce them one day—one good spy deserved another—but not under these horrible circumstances) and helping Bruce in the lab. Their top priority was setting up a way to scan space for any signs of Thanos or the Stones. Rocket pitched in too; with his knowledge of spacefarer’s tech that we didn’t have, he was invaluable. 

Before Carol had left, she had souped up Fury’s pager and left it in Rhodey’s keeping; if the lab rats picked up signals, they could contact her and she would return here. It made sense she would also come back here if, no, when she found any trace of our missing comrades, and I felt tied to the spot, until some word came.

Word came in an unexpected form a few days later, when Nat and Rocket dragged everybody into the lab. While Bruce was napping, they had picked up something. “When Thanos snapped his fingers,” Rocket explained, “Earth became ground zero for a power surge of ridiculously cosmic proportions. No one'd ever seen anything like it... till we caught this, just now.” A hologram popped up from the surface of one of Shuri's working sandtables, showing a section of space with several stars and planets, and zoomed in on one world with a shockwave visibly traversing its surface. “Here.” 

Rhodey activated the pager to call Carol back, but we had no idea what she might be enmeshed in doing, so the team settled down to debate what to do. “Realistically, we have no way to get there,” Shuri, summoned from the council chamber, reminded us. “Captain Danvers can fly, but even I have not yet mastered that kind of tech.”

“We have to figure out a way.” Steve’s eyes were brighter than they’d been in days. “If that signature means Thanos is on that world, and he’s used the stones again, who knows what for, we can’t send Carol after him alone. We’ve got to stop him. Get them back, and make things right. Get everybody back.”

“Even if there's a small chance that we can undo this,” Nat said slowly, back from rousing Bruce, “I think we owe it to everyone who's not in this room to try.”

Heads nodded all around, but Bruce rubbed his eyes and looked unconvinced. “If we do this, how do we know it's gonna end any differently than it did before?”

“Because before,” Carol said from behind Rhodey, “you didn’t have me.”

Rhodey jumped and yelped. “Hey, don’t you know part of the hero code is don’t scare your compatriots into cardiac arrest?”

“Another part of the hero code is be aware of your surroundings,” she shot back, undaunted. “I heard what you just said, and yeah, that’s a better lead than anything I’ve turned up. Let’s check it out, and take him down.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Before the timing difference here between this verse and canon throws you completely off, remember that in Endgame, the team didn’t have to have Nebula's intel to find Thanos; they pinpointed his location themselves through the signatures of the stones. Nebula just explained why he was there. 
> 
> Carol's family is Maria and Monica, of course! Fury was keeping Goose, though.
> 
> And even though his actual role made sense, I will die angry that Marvel robbed us of even the suggestion of Veep Rhodey. :(


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers and Carol leave to hunt down Thanos. Chrissy is called to a parley, and makes plans to return to New York.

In the silence that followed, Thor slowly stood from his seat half-hidden beside an unoccupied workstation. He held a cooked goat leg in one hand—I made a mental note to talk to him about eating his feelings. The other hand rose and outstretched, and we all heard a faint swoosh in the air, drawing closer. Stormbreaker, the huge ax he hadn’t touched since the loss to Thanos, sailed into the room and into his grasp. It passed Carol so closely that the breeze ruffled her hair, but she didn’t bat an eye. Thor’s glare melted into the first tentative smile I’d seen from him since he returned to earth. “I like this one,” he said. Rhodey grinned.

“Run across any trail of the _Benatar_?” Rocket asked. Carol shook her head.

Nobody wanted to ask the other question, so like the masochist I am, I did. “What about Tony and the others?”

“I found wreckage on Titan, of a q-ship that matched the description of the one they left on. No survivors or bodies around, so I checked all the trade routes within several light-years in all directions, in case somebody cobbled together an escape pod. Nothing.” Carol looked from me to Rhodey. “If Thanos said he fought your friend, and said he hoped humans remembered him, it’s a pretty sure bet there isn’t anything left of him.”

“If that’s true,” Rhodey’s voice dropped, “even using the stones again wouldn’t bring him back.” 

I wanted to cry, to scream. Looking around, every face looked like I felt, heartbroken and enraged. They would take their grief and their love for Tony out on his killer, I knew. “Let’s go get this son of a bitch,” Steve said simply.

The next question, of course, was how to get there. Carol came up with a swift and elegant solution. She stepped outside, shot skyward, and returned a few hours later with a spaceship. Yes, she came back _carrying_ a craft a bit bigger than a quinjet. “I came across dozens of star-jumpers like this, adrift after their crews were snapped,” she said. “The ones with surviving crew radioed for help, and a lot of them got picked up by salvagers who scanned for life signs, but there are still lots for the picking.”

Rocket jumped to check the ship over, and the Avengers scattered to suit up. “Coming, Chris?” Steve asked me.

“No. You were right the first time, Steve. This isn’t a game for amateurs. This could be our last, our only chance to right this wrong. I’d like to be there, but I don’t have the—the self-command to do it. I failed with my sword, and I can’t control Extremis in an active, usable way, and words aren’t needed there. I’d be a distraction there, unneeded. Where I’m needed is back in New York, getting my head back in the game the way I know I can be of use.” 

He hugged me. "We'll do all we can to find out what really happened to them," he promised.

I saw them off an hour later, getting my first peek inside a real spaceship with Rocket and Carol in the pilots’ seats. “Who here hasn’t been to space?” Rocket barked. Steve, Nat and Rhodey cautiously raised their hands. “Fine. Brace yourselves, and don’t throw up,” he grumbled as everybody settled and buckled in. “No freeloaders, fireball,” he threw over his shoulder at me. “Come with us and kick some purple ass, or get your feet back on the ground.”

“I’m going, I’m going. Be careful, everybody.”

The ship lifted off as a luminous sunrise backlit it. I closed my eyes and sent up a heartfelt prayer for their safety, for victory, and for truth. Then I grabbed some sweet dumplings for breakfast and went back to work, doing several virtual press conferences for Asia and Australia. Once those were done, I debated digging into the stack of emails left untouched, the ones from the last days of the normal world. Instead, I headed out to the Dora Milaje practice grounds.

The ranks of women wielding their weapons was so thin it made me want to tuck my tail and run away. Too late, though; Okoye spied me hovering uncertainly at the farthest edge of the field, signaled the soldiers to pair off and spar, and came over. “ _Lomlilo_ , it cheers me to see you.”

“General,” I greeted her with an effort at a good smile. 

It must have looked about as lame as it felt, and her brows drew into a disapproving pucker. “You do not name me teacher any longer?”

“I wasn’t a very good student. I feel I shamed you in the battle.”

The small noise she made was for her the equivalent of a full-on laugh in my face. “Your White Wolf was not ashamed to fight beside you, nor was I, nor were your sisters here. You had never before taken up arms in earnest. Now that you have been blooded, I suspect things would be different. But, here, I see you come without weapon or uniform, so you have another reason to be here.”

“I, well, it’s time I went back to America. My work is done easiest there, and…if the team finds any trace of Tony, I need to be there for Pepper. Shuri’s up to her eyebrows in council spats, I know, so instead of bothering her, I thought I’d, bother you?” I laughed, embarrassed at the words as they came out. “Who might I ask to help me find a way to New York?”

“You might ask me. I can take a day, tomorrow and fly you out. The princess will allow us the use of a Talon. Your brother’s tower has space for landing on its roof, yes? I have never seen New York City, so it will be a small treat for me.” Sometimes it was shamefully easy to forget, because of her strength, that Okoye too had lost loved ones, that W’Kabi was gone, that T’Challa had crumbled before her eyes as Bucky had before mine. She could use a break too.

Our plans were made and I was about to leave when Okoye’s kimoyo beads beeped. “A call from a border village,” she frowned. “Odd.” 

With a touch, an image of a young woman in borderer blue appeared. “General! A small band of rough men has approached our village. Their leader speaks English, and he has asked after the _Lomlilo_.”

“Say what?” I gulped. 

Okoye shushed me. “Do they appear hostile, Omda? What is their purpose?”

“They are armed, but have expressed no enmity. In fact, they seem quite forlorn. As for what they wish with Miss Everhart, that they refuse to speak of, save to her.”

“Where is it?” I whispered. “How do I get there?” Nobody took speeders to the towns near the border, outside the protective shield. More to the point, who the hell would show up on Wakanda’s doorstep asking for me? From Rhodey’s talks with Air Force brass, the US military had picked up the Black Order’s ships targeting Africa, though Shuri’s scrambling tech meant to protect her people had prevented any troops from pinpointing the battle. That didn’t matter, though—they may have suspected the Avengers were here, but nobody should know I was! I cursed the part of me that suddenly wished for my uniform and sword. They needed to stay buried, and the name stay here until forgotten. 

“Offer them hospitality, and observe them as you are trained to do,” Okoye ordered. “We will arrive presently.” She shut off the signal. “Omda was trained by Nakia. She is one of the best of the War Dogs. She will watch them like a hawk-eagle. You should stay here. I shall go and—”

“ _Titshala_! Weren’t you the one just telling me not to let shame make me afraid?”

She looked torn between exasperation and amusement. “Very well, then. Can you ride a horse?”

“Well, I rode my cousin’s pony when I was a kid. Long time, but same principle, I guess.”

It was, more or less. Good thing the village in question wasn’t far, though, and that I was wearing jeans and a blouse and not a professional suit. My palms itched as I guided a pleasant grey mare behind Okoye on a big chestnut; Extremis seemed to be wanting to be let out to play, and again I thought of Bucky’s words, how he had wanted me to learn to use the fire freehand, to protect myself. _Maybe. Maybe if, WHEN, he gets back, I’ll do it. Or maybe I should go on and do it. Wouldn’t he be pleasantly surprised…_

I dragged my brain back on topic, about the time we entered the village. Okoye rode straight to the town’s center, where Omda and several older folks who looked to be village elders waited, with a wary eye on nine or ten tired-looking men with machine guns slung haphazardly across their backs and dusty checked scarves draped around their necks. They looked up at our approach and one stepped forward, looking pleased but cautious. “I am Hamid,” he said after I dismounted. “I am, or was, second to the Mandarin. He vanished, with the others, in this attack from the stars that the news speaks of. I took command of the Ten Rings, what is left of them. Some wished to continue our fight, but to most of us, it seemed that with the whole of earth and other worlds at stake, this is no time for humans to fight among themselves. The earth was torn and this curse was visited upon all equally: followers of the Prophet, peace be upon him; people of the book like yourself; everyone. And so, it is only reasonable we must all labor together to mend it.

“It was not likely I could contact any authorities with our statement and be heard,” he went on, “nor to be honest anyone other than face to face. In going through the Mandarin’s records, I found his correspondence with you, and read how he held you in esteem for speaking truth to your own government. But, how to find you?” Hamid spread his hands and gave a small roguish grin. “In your last statement to the public, you mentioned the brave troops of Wakanda resisting the alien warlord’s assault, and no country has claimed the battle to be on their soil, so I took a company and set out to seek you here. While some of our own disagree, I am at the head for now, and for now, I say there will be no attacks from the Ten Rings on our fellow humans, and I swear our arms to aid against any future incursions.”

I was quietly flabbergasted. “Thank you,” I said simply. “I think the best help you can render for now would be to return home and take care of your own people. Let me get your contact information, so if an alarm goes up we’ll know how to call you. There’s still hope things might be reversed, but whatever happens, I hope words, not weapons, can be used to keep this peace on Earth.”

We left the village with an elder bringing out a pot of spiced root-veggie stew and fighters sitting in the dirt playing pick-up-sticks with the kids. Still fairly speechless, I pulled my brain cells together enough to give Okoye a quick explanation on the way back to the training grounds, thanked her and the horse, and circled across to the farm to set it right before leaving Wakanda. There wasn’t much there that I needed to take, more like folding clothes and putting them away, stitching up the doorcloth to keep dust and rain out, that sort of thing.

While I was finishing up, fiddling around the paddocks and saying goodbye to the remaining goats, Tisi, an elder of the neighboring village, strolled up. I let her know I was going back to America for a while, and she assured me the kids and their parents wouldn’t be put out to keep an eye on the place. “We have not thanked you for fighting for us,” she said.

“I, um, what do you mean?”

I’ve never been good at lying or playing innocent, and clearly my skills hadn’t improved in adulthood. “You sparred with the White Wolf, you trained with the Dora Milaje and they gave you a battle-name. We know.” She leaned against the paddock fence and clucked at the particularly sneaky she-goat Bucky had named Natasha. “I saw you carry your uniform and weapon into the hut, and leave without them. It is not ill done, to step away for a while after an ordeal. When you are ready to take them up again, they will call to you.” I doubted that, but I wasn’t about to argue with this kind, suffering people, not when I felt their suffering was partly my fault.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember back in book 4, when Chrissy got an email supposedly from the Mandarin, about her article clearing him of the murders that Klllian committed in his name? I asked at the time if y'all thought it was a legit communication. Now you know it was. Who knows what canon will end up doing with them, but this is my verse's take, that at least for the period of this story, some humans decide earth needs to stick together instead of beating on each other.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy returns to New York and catches up. More friends find their way there and form a mutual support network, until Natasha returns with news about Thanos, the Stones, and Tony.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry so late posting this! My town got whacked by tornadoes this week, and it's made doing a lot of simple things much more complicated, even for those of us who were fortunate and didn't take direct hits. It's a longish chapter, so hopefully that makes up a bit.

Twenty-four hours later, Okoye brought the loaned Talon flyer in over New York City. She was impressed, but I was sad. “It’s a great place, I really like it, but…it isn’t the same,” I told her. The streets were busy, sure, and the lights were bright in the overcast sky, but the effects of the Snap were obvious; the streets weren’t as busy, the lights weren’t as bright. She didn’t ask more, just nodded.

We set down on the landing deck atop Avengers Tower. Pepper was waiting and snatched me up in a hug I thought might break me. There were normal niceties to be observed; I introduced her to Okoye, and she promptly asked her to stay a while. “My duties call me home,” Okoye said with genuine regret in her tone. “When things are set to rights again, I shall come back to visit and see your landmarks…and get a Starbucks, perhaps?”

“We can get you one of those to go,” I said dryly, “if you’re really all that tired of Wakandan coffee. That stuff is amazing, Pep. Tony’ll—” I caught myself. 

“He’ll love it,” she said firmly. “We’ll beg some for him, when he gets home.”

Okoye made no argument. “When your brother returns home,” she told me, “I will bring him a bag of beans myself.” She gave me the Wakandan salute and I returned it, then she caught my hands in hers. “Be well, _lomlilo_. We will see each other again.” I watched my teacher leave, then drew my shoulders back and sucked in a deep breath of that crazy Manhattan air that’s always better on the roof. One of Tony’s favorite sayings to rally the team for action came into my head: _Avengers, time to work for a living._

Pepper led me in and to the penthouse, where May and Happy were waiting. More hugs ensued, naturally, and a few tears. Several of those tears were mine, when JARVIS welcomed me home, but said that FRIDAY had been non-operational since the snap. I wondered if that meant Tony had managed to create life. The bots, thankfully, were okay too, but I shuddered inside at the thought of having to tell them their daddy wasn’t coming home, if it truly came to that.

They sat me down and demanded a full accounting, and I told them they better order lunch if they expected that, because it was a pretty long story. Pep’s hands trembled, but she held it together as I spoke. I thought back to the days after Tony’s rescue in Afghanistan, how she had kept the stiffest of upper lips while people gossiped about his presumed death, and only let herself cry once she knew he was safe. _Dear Lord, I want her to be able to cry._

After some collective hugs, Pepper asked May if she wanted to spend the night, and May replied in the negative, but with obvious gratitude. It sounded like a conversation they had had multiple times, which Pepper confirmed after Happy and May left, holding onto each other like they were afraid of dusting or being dusted. “May’s come into work every day, and helped at the hospital near her apartment too since they’re down so much staff.”

“Sounds like her,” I said while helping dump the lunch trash. “I’m glad she and Happy seem to be letting themselves lean on each other.”

“Ned, Peter’s friend, lost both his parents, so she’s sort of adopted him too. I think they’ve been good for each other.” 

We compared notes about our respective families, and Pep was relieved to hear Avonelle was safe. Pepper’s parents both having died before she graduated from high school, her dad’s two brothers were the only blood kin she had; one had been snapped, the other was all right. “Miss Potts,” JARVIS interrupted, “a young man is at the reception desk in the lobby, asking after Sir.” 

Baffled, we both went down and found a boy about Peter’s age with a beat-up old suitcase at his side, shuffling his feet on the granite floor and being glared at by someone behind the desk—not Josefina, the usual receptionist, which made my heart sink. Pepper was about to make polite inquiries when he looked up, and even with a couple of years on him I recognized him after a moment. “Harley!” I exclaimed.

I didn’t have to ask what he was doing in New York City. His mother and little sister had both been ‘poofed’ as he called it. “There wasn’t much of nothin’ I could do in our Podunk town to keep myself up, and I couldn’t come up with any other ideas, so I drove our old pickup to Chattanooga, sold it an’ caught a bus up here. Dunno why, really, I’d heard Mr. Stark was off chasin’ aliens. Guess I kinda figured he’d make short work of ‘em, like he does ever’body else bad. I’ll head back in th’ morning though, Miz Potts, if y’all could point me towards a place to stay th’ night that won’t drain my last red cent.”

Pepper gave him The Look. “Tony’s told me a lot about you, Harley. Frankly, I’d be offended if you didn’t stay here. There’s plenty of room, and plenty of work at Stark Industries you can help me with, if you’re up for it.”

“Oh, yes ma’am, I’m good for earning my keep.”

Once we got Harley fed and settled in a guest suite, Pepper sat me down. “I need your help too, Chrissy, whatever time you can spare me. Most of the PR department is gone, including Leticia.” Stark Industries was reeling, she said, but she dug in her heels and was determined to keep it going, for Tony, whatever the final verdict on his fate was. Some of the board were giving her a hard time (most of them had survived; go figure) but by and large, they were as shaken as she if not more so, and they did not have a dead-set ride-or-die love for Tony Stark to drag them forward. She did. 

_"Usisi_ , get real,” I told her with a bit of a huff. “Do i have to repeat, I am with you till the train runs out of track.” I hugged her, saw her safely to her bedroom door, and went to open my office back up and get to work.

Letting it be known I was back in New York brought a flood of contacts, questions, requests and assorted bitching. The morning after my return, I went down to SI public relations, hugged nearly every employee left, and swore to them I would do all I could to help them. After all, SI still technically paid my salary. It took a good forty-eight hours, working almost around the clock and taking every advantage of the stamina Extremis gave me, to dig my way out from under the current deluge. Once I did, I could finally address a batch of messages I had been dreading: the ones that came during the day or two before the Black Order attacked. They were everyday things: a production company asking to set up a meeting with Tony to talk about him being the face of a new online educational series about AI’s, a thank-you note from a disabled veterans group for a blog post Bucky had written before he went to Wakanda that was still getting likes and positive comments, a contact from a McDonald’s rep wanting to add Spider-Man to their next Avengers Happy Meal toy set. Staring at them on my monitor, they seemed unreal, echoes of a life now gone, maybe gone forever.

Harley moved in on the research and development department, or what was left of it, like a boss. Not to say he was the new boss, but his new ideas and enthusiasm perked them up. I peeked in, and found him almost bouncing off walls, giving pep talks, making fun of Yankee accents before they could make fun of his redneck one. I knew the signs. He was throwing himself into this work, to leave himself less time to deal with existence outside of it.

Pepper was doing the same. I saw and heard her in and out of her office at all hours of the day and night. New York was notorious for never sleeping, but at least I had the excuse of a freaky virus/sort-of symbiote. I scheduled a press conference for her, and stood beside her while she assured the public Stark Industries was still intact and would continue working on all the projects Tony had envisioned to make the world better.

“But how long can you go on, in this holding pattern?” a stringer from the Post asked. “Sooner or later, some determination will have to be made as to whether Mr. Stark is alive or—”

“Mr. Stark made arrangement as needed for all possible eventualities,” Pepper snapped. “One of those is that an amount of time be allowed to lapse, an _appropriate_ amount of time, before we—gave up on him. I don’t believe you need to be reminded how many times you in the media have written him off as lost, only to have him return as strong as before. When that time is reached, _if_ it is reached, with no word…then we will deal with it as Tony wanted.”

That night, I went up to the penthouse to see if Pep wanted to join me in ordering Chinese for supper. I wasn’t spending much time in my apartment, too quiet, too alone; sleeping in my own bed alone again was hard enough that of the two nights since I had come back, I had only caught a few catnaps on my couch. I stepped off the elevator into the dimly lit entranceway, and stopped when I heard Pepper’s voice sounding as if talking to somebody. Harley wasn’t here, though; I’d seen him downstairs, on his way to check out the neighborhood food, and sent him on with some recommendations. “Tony…I miss you, honey, so much. I hope you get back soon, and we can listen to these and laugh at them—or we don’t have to listen at all, you can delete them all, like the other time, and forget this ever happened. Well, I know we can’t do that, we have to go on, I have to go on if…never mind. I’m not talking about that, or thinking about it, I’m going to keep believing you’re out there someplace and you’ll be home soon—”

I moved into the sitting area. Pepper was seated on the big sectional couch, her phone to her ear. When she noticed me, she said, “Chrissy’s here, I’ll let you go. I love you. She loves you too.” She sighed and laid the phone on the seat cushion beside her. “I call his number, to listen to his voicemail message, and sometimes I…I leave him one. I did that when he was in Afghanistan too. Well, I listened, mostly, then; but one night, not long before he was rescued, I got rip-roaring drunk and left him a message, begging him to come home, telling him I loved him.” She let out a small choked laugh. “He deleted all his voicemails when he got home, all one thousand and something, without listening to them. I—couldn’t decide if I was glad or sorry. At least now, I can say ‘I love you’ and not be afraid.” I sat down on her opposite side and patted her knee. “I called him, and he was on that ship, and I yelled at him, I was so angry, but it was—maybe the last time I heard his voice, ever, and the last time he heard mine, and all I did was bitch at him for going. I knew he couldn’t turn his back on protecting the earth. Why didn’t I say I loved him, then, when he needed to hear—”

She choked again and I put my arms around her. “I know, sis,” I whispered, fighting my voice past the lump in my own throat. “The last time I talked to him, y’all were about to go jog in the park. I was late for practice with Okoye, and I was in a hurry, and I think back and wish I had sat my ass down and talked to him just a minute more. Trust me on this though, Pep: Tony knows you love him. I can’t say he’s never doubted that, but I can say when he did, it wasn’t your fault. The team ought to be back any time now; Carol knows how to use these space wormholes, and she said they’d make the trip about like a day drive up the coast in Cali. They promised they would do everything they could to get the stones and get everybody back. And if…if Thanos told me the truth, then—they’ll make him tell them where he left Tony, and they’ll bring him home, so there’s…”

“Closure,” she said softly, when I couldn’t say more. “I thought he was going to cry, the night you left for Wakanda. He knew how you hated for people to hover, and that you didn’t want him to blame himself, but he did. It tore him apart that he couldn’t help you, but he was so glad that the princess there could.”

“You always said what a good heart he had, even back when we first met. I never forgot that.”

“He did. He sent me flowers, while he was gone then, did I ever tell you? The day he left for Afghanistan, that morning you and I met, it was my—”

“Your birthday! Of course.”

“Well, he didn’t remember. I mentioned it before he left for the plane, he said ‘is it that time already?’ I guess he called for them on his way, because the flowers came the next morning while I was dealing w the news…” She shivered a little, and we sat and held each other, until a faint familiar sound from the direction of the roof caught our attention. “Is that a quinjet?” Pep began.

A few moments later, the elevator sounded, and Natasha stepped off. She halted when she saw us in the half-light, and her face told me before she spoke that the news was not going to be good. “We just got back,” she said. “The others are going back to Wakanda, but I told them to drop me here.” She took a breath. “The Infinity Stones have been destroyed. Thanos is dead and...we believe Tony is also.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A deleted scene from IM1 shows Tony coming home, being greeted by JARVIS, and deleting all those thousand and some odd voicemails. Pepper's story about leaving Tony one of those voicemails was inspired in part by chapter 8 of Personal and Working Relationships by Lets_call_me_Lily and rebelmeg, and is borrowed with the latter's kind permission. (sniffle)
> 
> https://archiveofourown.org/works/18957616/chapters/45123418


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nat shares her news. The last of the rooftop squad soldier on.

“We tracked him to a small farm, on an out-of-the-way planet,” Nat said, sitting on the couch with us, over wine. “The energy signature we picked up was him destroying the stones. He’d gotten what he wanted, so he had no further use for them.”

Her tone was flat, unemotional, or so anybody who didn’t know her would have thought. I knew better, and I knew Pepper did too; the even, almost lifeless quality came from her using every skill in the Black Widow’s bag of tricks to maintain composure. “So what happened to him?” I asked, almost as calm, though mine rose from just feeling numb from disbelief.

“Thor lost it. Remember he said Thanos taunted him, in Wakanda, when he struck him in the chest, and told him he could only be killed by a blow to the head?” Oh. So there went any other avenues Thanos might have known that would restore the people lost to the stones, not that he would have divulged them anyway. 

Pepper reached over, her hands only a little shaky, and refilled Nat’s glass. “And Tony?”

Nat was quiet for a moment. “Steve and Rhodey confronted him about Tony. He confirmed what he told you, Chrissy. They fought, and Tony sustained a…mortal wound…Thanos was about to give the coup de grace, when he said Strange offered the Time Stone in return for him sparing Tony’s life. He bragged about being a keeper of his word, said he did so, that Tony was still alive when he left him but that he…likely would have succumbed to his injuries.” Pepper was still as an ice sculpture, the wine bottle held in her outstretched hand. “Carol said she found no bodies on Titan, and asked if they fought there. He said yes, and that if there were no remains, then ‘all of them’ must have been snapped. We assume he meant Strange and—and Peter.” Nat looked up, and the tears that stood motionless in her eyes were as racking as any graphic demo of grief. “That’s when Thor swung.” _And that_ , I thought, _explains the lack of any trace._ Tony was likely still breathing at the moment of the snap, and it took him with the others.

The wine bottle fell to the glass table. Both shattered with an awful crash, and I waited for Pepper to do the same. Instead, she stood, and walked away. I wasn’t as strong as her, or Nat. Tears spilled from my eyes, and I felt I was going to crumble inside, the way Bucky had crumbled physically into dust before me. Nat called softly to Pepper, who came back from staring out the full-wall window onto the city that was a shadowy semblance of its usual self. “What about the rest of the team, Nat?” she asked. “They’re coming back, aren’t they? They know the compound is theirs, Tony always meant for it to be, and they’re always welcome here.”

“I don’t know what they’re going to do.” Having gotten all that off her chest, Nat sounded rather lost now. “Carol has to get back to her work off-world, but she’s going to watch for Rocket’s friends and their ship. Rhodey’s still got her pager, in case we need her, and she can make it back here within hours if she hoofs it. There’s next to no chance any Asgardians survived, from what Thor and Bruce say, but she offered to keep her ear to the ground, metaphorically speaking, just in case.

“Steve’s planning to come back here, I think he just needs some time. Bruce is staying in Wakanda, for a while; he wants to keep expanding his network, making connections with surviving scientists all over the world, and working with Shuri when she has time; she has some ideas to help him with Hulk, apparently. Thor’s made a friend there too, a warlord who’s working with Shuri to help her keep the peace. His tribe lives up in the mountains, and he’s invited Thor to come and stay with them a while, to get himself together.”

“That’s M’Baku,” I said. “One good warrior prince deserves another. Poor Thor, we’ve all got it bad enough, but think about it, he’s the last of his people now.”

“Since Rocket doesn’t have anywhere to go,” Nat went on, “Shuri asked him to stay on too. At least there are a few people he knows there, now. Still no word from Clint.”

Pepper seemed to register the mess of wine and broken glass on the floor; she made a little face, skirted it and sat down on Nat’s other side with a hand on her back. “And you?”

“I…I want to work. It’s the only way I know to get through this.” I nodded and hugged her. “First thing in the morning I’m checking on my dance studio kids. Then I’m going to start tracking down the street-level heroes we were working with, starting with the ones here in the city.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I agreed. “I’ll need you to help me put together a press release…we’ll decide how much the public needs to know. Pep, same with you. Think it over and then tell me what you want folks to know about-about Tony.” After another joint hug, I declared, “And we have to eat. None of us are gonna get shit done otherwise.”

“We can always count on you to make us eat, Chrissy,” Pepper managed.

“Eh, maybe. I haven’t been cooking, though. Just…I don’t have the will to do it, and I can’t bring myself to spend more than a minute in my kitchen, it’s so thick with memories of times Bucky and I…” I clenched my fists to keep myself from breaking down.

Nat’s hands closed over mine and gently pried them open enough to take them in hers. “We’ve got each other,” she reassured me.

Pepper put one arm around her and took one of my hands in her other one. “We’ll get through this, together.”

And we did, the next day, and the day after that. After talking it over, I wrote a statement that the Avengers had received intel through sources on other worlds that the Infinity Stones had been disposed of by Thanos, their whereabouts unknown. Thanos’ location, too, was unknown, but it was believed by their informants that he had died as a result of the injuries they had dealt him. The team and their allies would continue to search for further evidence to confirm or refute these reports, while scientists explored every possible option to remedy our situation. 

When I held the press briefing, I emphasized again that people had to support each other. Without naming names, I also announced that at least one organization on the international terror watch list had pledged to halt all aggressive actions for the foreseeable future. That was greeted, naturally, with skepticism, but it was the truth and I had spoken it publicly. I couldn’t, unfortunately, do anything beyond that. Various governmental agencies and other official bodies like the UN contacted me demanding details, but I held them off until I could come up with some means of verification. From what Hamid had said, he was having enough of a time keeping his own people in check; he didn’t need US agents trying to jerk him around, when he was finally trying to do the right thing by his fellow humans.

Pepper decided not to make a new statement about Tony yet. “I checked his will,” she said. “He set a firm time frame of one year from the last time he was seen a-alive, before it could be opened and probated.” Considering it’d been less than two weeks and she looked as wrung out as a worn dishcloth, I secretly despaired of her lasting a year, and was more thankful for the extended hours Extremis granted me, to give her as much support as humanly (well, enhanced-humanly) possible.

Nat discovered that several students of her dance studio had lost one or both parents, and she began to raise cain with what was left of city authorities. Within a few days, she ended up leading a very public push to identify all children orphaned by the snap, starting with New York and then expanding to take in the whole US, and encouraging similar initiatives around the world. “It feels…natural,” Nat told Pepper and me. “I hadn’t told anybody besides Bruce, but the Red Room that trained me…they sterilized us, when we finished. A fail-safe, to prevent us from bearing hostages to fortune, or distractions from missions. It seemed irrelevant to me, until Bruce and I began seeing each other…he’s afraid to father children, because of the radiation exposure, but we’d talked about adopting, someday, when we retired from Avenging. Granted, we aren’t there, now, he and I, and we may never be again, but it made me think for the first time about finding that nurturing side of myself. It came out, a little, with Peter, but now, these little ones need somebody so badly. And I was an orphan, I know how that feels, being alone and small.”

I thought about her words, and then headed for Brooklyn the first chance I got, to check on Bucky’s garden kids. More hugs and tears ensued, though thankfully most of them had enough family to keep them going. Schools had cancelled for several days, but were starting to resume. I talked with a teacher in the neighborhood, who said that striving to re-establish some kind of routine would be good for children, teachers and families in general. 

May said the same thing, when she sent Ned back to school, though she agreed he was as lost without Peter as she was. Pepper admitted she didn’t know how much to tell her, about what we knew, or thought we knew, about Tony’s fate, and consequently what might have happened to Peter. After debate, she ended up going to the medical office and telling her everything. May took it as well as she could, I guess, though she shocked us both (Pep took me along for moral support, for her and May both) when she confessed, “Is it awful that I hope he went first? Petey, I mean. He lost his dad, and then my Ben, and I just—can’t stand to think the last thing he saw could’ve been losing Tony too, as close as they’d gotten.”

Nat understood, when I told her later. “Clint called me, finally, late last night. Laura and the kids…were gone, when he got home, and I have to admit, a part of me went the same place May did. I was glad he wasn’t there to have to see it.” 

It hurt, but it made sense. “How is he?” I asked. 

“He says he’s okay. He is not okay, I know that, but he wants us to believe that, and he says he just needs some time, so we’ll give him that. I texted Steve so he and the team won’t worry.”

“If he needs a place to crash, I know Bucky wouldn’t mind if Clint used the farm,” I reminded her.

“I know Bucky wouldn’t, and you wouldn’t; but Clint would. He’s done this a couple of times before, after a mission went south in a big way; he drops off the grid for a while. He just…needs this. He’ll be all right. I have to believe that.”

Clint’s wellbeing was one more thing to keep in my prayers, a corner of my mind rolling like a Tibetan _mani_ wheel as I hustled about my day, images and voices of the people I loved and missed, thoughts and words for those I didn’t know but still felt a drive to seek justice for. Between being the face and voice for Avengers who weren’t even in the country, and helping Pepper keep SI on everybody’s right side, I found a minute to contact Master Wong and pass along the claims Thanos had made regarding Strange. His reaction to that was unusual, to put it mildly. “No,” he said. “That can’t be right. Stephen wouldn’t give the Time Stone up to save his own life, let alone somebody else’s, not even Stark. No offense.”

“None taken,” I assured him. “Why would Thanos make something like that up, though?”

“I can’t conceive a motive for that either,” he mused. “There’s something about that interaction that we don’t yet know.”

I promised to keep him informed, though the chances of my getting any more intel along those lines was slim at best. My days, and nights mostly, were spent in riding herd on social media, smacking down rumors and spreading as much truth and positive info as possible. Some of the press corps I knew had been dusted, but some remained, and I worked closer with them than I ever had before. Marcus Tate, who had conducted the groundbreaking 60 Minutes team interview, contacted me a couple of times asking about a follow-up. I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea this soon, but I promised to talk with them, and get back to him, and even told him to hit me up again in a week or two if I didn’t drop him a line.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks after Thanos' snap, Shuri calls with an idea, and Chrissy finds herself returning to Wakanda and taking friends along.

Day by day, I kept doing my job, but the old satisfaction was gone. Part of it was seeing the world struggle to pick itself up and go on, and doing everything I could think of to help, while in my gut I felt the blame. I felt antsy, uneasy in my own skin, as though if I slowed down I would be physically incapable of staying in one spot. On the rare occasions I ran out of things that needed doing, I was out walking around, cataloging what was missing or diminished. Mr. Choi’s hot dog wagon on the corner was gone, as was Bucky’s favorite staffer at our donut haunt. I hiked to Times Square, where the crowds were achingly sparse. Even the lines of fans trying to score Hamilton tickets was painfully short by comparison to my last walk through midtown, a few months that seemed like an eternity ago.

Pepper, insightful as always, noticed my disquiet. “Did you get so used to action, to training with the Wakandans and using Extremis?”

I didn’t want to talk about that. “Shuri got Extremis under control, Pep, but that wasn’t the same as using the stuff itself as a weapon. Yeah, Bucky suggested I should learn to do that, without a prop, but I—I couldn’t. I failed, against Thanos. I got so scared and angry—and I was hurt, but that’s no excuse—I couldn’t use it once I lost my sword. Beyond keeping it in check, so nobody gets hurt by it, I really don’t want anything more to do with it.”

“Okay, okay, you have to do what’s right for you, sis. I’m just worried about you. I don’t want to lose anybody else.”

I didn’t want Pep to lose anybody else, either, hence my determination to squelch the fire in my blood. Everybody had issues, right now, and other than the risk of injuring others, mine were no more special than anyone else’s. In fact, though I tried to keep it to myself, I still wasn’t sleeping much. It could have been worse; at least I was getting more done as a consequence. Naturally, though, Nat caught me. “Pepper told me she wondered if you were having trouble because you weren’t ‘working out,” she said dryly, stealing Thor’s finger quotes while she perched on a stool at my kitchen counter. “But you weren’t sleeping in Wakanda, right after the snap. Extremis, from what little Bruce has said, needs an outlet. You can’t keep fighting it. It may not consume you in flames, but it will consume you all the same.”

As usual, I had to concede, she was right. That night, I slipped back down to the Hulk room, and resumed the small exercises I had done before I went to Wakanda, the ones I had abandoned when I got my sword and started to focus on using it to channel the power to the exclusion of any other mode. I confined those exercises to that space, though. I wasn’t going to try to do more elsewhere in the tower, with my friends close and so many people nearby. It did seem to help—I felt less edgy, and actually started to sleep a few more hours a night—but I couldn’t help but question whether little sparks to light a candle were the only fire I could muster now.

Almost three weeks after the snap, Shuri called me with an idea both terrifying and intriguing. That wasn’t the initial purpose of the call, or at least I didn’t think it was. She just had a minute between functions as acting head of state, and called to see how Extremis and I were getting along. I confessed my issues and shared the exercises I was doing, as well as my questions about the extent of the virus’ reach now. 

“I have wondered that as well,” she said. “From what Dr. Banner’s associates have found, the snap does not appear to have penetrated down to the level of single-cell animate life forms; it seems to have stopped at some cutoff point at the lowest reaches of sentient life. Humans, animals, birds, insects, and the like were from all indications the targets of Thanos’ purge. Since they came to that conclusion, however, I have given the matter some thought. You and I suspected that Extremis had some degree of primitive sentience. It behaved as though it sensed when you might be threatened, and attempted to act accordingly to protect you as its host. If that indeed was the case, I must speculate it might have fallen prey to the assault of the Stones. Now that things in Wakanda are a bit calmer, I would like to run another battery of tests to determine if the concentration of the virus in your system is at all changed.”

The last words came out with a hint of haste, as if she wanted to get them out before I could argue. “That sounds like a terrific idea,” I said, and wished with a mental snicker that I could see if she looked surprised. “I haven’t tried to let Extremis loose, even as much as I was doing when I was training there. So retesting is annoying, but I’m absolutely in. Gives me a chance to come round up some of my wayward friends and try to get them back home.”

After we hung up, I started to plan. Maybe Pepper could spare Happy to take me; he’d spoken with a touch of longing about how amazing Wakanda sounded. Better yet, maybe I could convince Pep to come too. And while my joke about dragging Avengers out from underfoot in Shuri’s land had been just that, I really should touch base and give them a heads up that I was planning to visit. Before I could do any of that, though, my in box pinged with incoming alerts. I sighed and set my phone aside to check them out. One was from Marcus Tate. ::Christine—hope things are going well, or at least, as well as can be, considering. Wanted to ask if there’s been any movement among the surviving Avengers regarding media outreach by the team. Let me know please? Thanks::

I paused, and thought; then I quickly typed ::hey Marcus. Great minds think alike. I was just about to contact Cap about giving you something. Not sure you could take a full camera crew where they are currently based, though. Here’s what I’m thinking—I’m going there in the next few days, to take some f2f meetings & work with them. I can video them there, if they agree. Sit tight, & hopefully I’ll get back to you in the next 24 hrs or so::

Having committed, I promptly started to second-guess myself. Judging from Nat’s report of the team’s state of mind on the flight back from Thanos’ garden planet, they were all disheartened, and the public seeing their heroes that way might just make matters worse. I shook my head and checked the time: early afternoon here in the Big Apple, so sneaking up on civilized people’s bedtime in Birnin Zana. Might as well take a chance, I figured, and called Steve.

He sounded tired, but pleased that I was returning, and excited at the prospect of Pepper coming along. “It’d be nice to show her around. She’ll like your and Buck’s place.” More surprising yet was his reaction to my hesitant broaching of the subject of a possible team interview. “We ought to. Well, I guess I better not make a promise for everybody else. Thor probably won’t, and I wouldn’t try to force the issue; but Rhodey would, and Bruce I think, and maybe Nat—you can ask her there—and I know I feel like I ought to. It’d be good for regular people, I think, to see that we’re hurting too, that we’re, I dunno, with them in their pain. And…just speaking for myself, opening up might be good. Remember how surprised we all were when Tony went public about his anxiety? He shared something that he was kind of ashamed of, something he thought made him weak, because he hoped knowing heroes are human would help other people be strong. This…could be our way to carry that on. For Tony.”

“For Tony,” I echoed. I told Marcus that, when I updated him on the agreement of several Avengers to participate. 

Now it was time to take the next steps. By now I was sick of conducting everything on a screen, so I went downstairs to Pepper’s office, down all those corridors that were too damn quiet now. There, I explained Shuri’s idea and my eagerness to get some hard data about what was going on in my body. I went on to lay out the two birds, one stone concept of my getting the team on video while there, and Steve’s impeccable if heartbreaking reasoning behind agreeing to do the interview. “If you’re about to ask if I can spare you for a few days, I can’t, but of course I will,” Pepper interrupted, her eyes suspiciously red. 

“Actually, I was about to ask if SI could spare you for a few days. You’re going to run yourself into the ground, sis. Yeah, you want to keep the place going, for Tony’s sake, but would he want you to do it like this? Seriously, ask me which one he thoug—thinks is more important, you or the business. You and I both know, it’s you, always you. I’m not gonna stand by and let you kill yourself. You need a break. Come with me. You’ll love Wakanda. We can take Okoye her Starbucks. And we’ll get Happy to fly us—we can introduce him to Shuri, and oh my gosh, can’t you just see his face, getting to meet an actual princess royal? Please come!”

I was about ready to bounce off walls and beg like a kid at a theme park, when Pepper relented and dredged up a little smile. “Okay. Okay, I will. I’ll have to get things set so I can leave them though, and line up a chain of command in case decisions have to be made on short notice and I’m not available.”

“I’ll leave you to get your ducks in a row then,” I said, “I need to go talk to Nat, and that’s another conversation that needs to be had face to face, I think.”

Not only did Nat agree to the interview, once I shared Steve’s thoughts, she said she would fly us there, if Pepper needed Happy to stay and keep the tower and environs secure. There had been some increase in crime and general acting-out globally; it wasn’t as brutal as I might have feared, but it was definitely there. Avengers Tower had not been hit by anything thus far. I hoped that was because people knew how much the team had sacrificed in the fruitless efforts to protect them. It never hurt to be too careful, though, Nat was right about that. Happy, when Pepper called him in to talk about their options, admitted he’d love to see Wakanda, but felt he was needed more here. 

In her usual efficient fashion, Pepper got everything set up in short order. By evening, she texted me. ::ducks are in a row and ready to waddle along without me on site for a bit::. Harley was running R&D and living up to Tony’s standards, by which I mean blowing shit up on the regular. As a result, he had made May’s acquaintance early on, and surprisingly, she had halfway adopted him alongside Ned. Secretly, I wasn’t shocked. I figured it took multiple teenage boys to fill the void Peter left. Harley kept up his cocky front and said he would keep May company. He needed the company too, I knew.

When we met on the tower roof early in the morning to leave, Nat greeted me with, “Clint called me. He ended up in Japan, crossed paths with some yakuza trying to take advantage of a local power vacuum. Didn’t even have his bow, but ‘took care of it’, he said. I restated your offer of a roof in Wakanda,” she went on as we got settled in the quinjet and she lifted off, “and this time he accepted. He’ll meet us there, though when, well, that depends on Clint.”

“Of course it does.” Pep smiled a little. “That’s the best news we’ve had in a while though.”

She was right, and it made the trip across the ocean a little easier (when I wasn’t keeping an eye on the ninety-six ounce box of Pike Place Blend coffee the Starbucks around the corner from the tower had poured up for us to deliver). The next best thing to happen was watching Pepper’s wide-eyed gasp when Nat took us in through Wakanda’s shield and we burst into air over the Golden City. I thought of Tony’s heartfelt swearing at the sight, and wished with every fiber of my being he was here to enjoy Pepper’s reaction. 


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back in Wakanda, Chrissy listens to wise counsel, has a happy reunion, and makes a decision about her path forward. Her first steps are interrupted by an approach that puts the surviving defenders of Earth on high alert.

We set down outside the air control and communication center, on the edge of the royal compound. While Nat reset the quinjet, Pepper and I debarked and found Steve and Rhodey waiting. “Bruce has something going in the lab, and Rocket’s lending him a paw. Thor’s still hanging with the Jabari but he says he’ll come down tomorrow,” Rhodey told us amid the group hugs. “Shuri was going to show Pep around, but she and her mom got called into some emergency council confab, so me and Cap volunteered.”

Nat passed along the news of Clint’s return, then headed off for the lab to see Bruce. They weren’t a couple again, not yet, as she had said, but there were still feelings there on both sides, I could almost smell it. I took charge of the coffee and went looking for Okoye, finding her in her least favorite place doing her absolute least favorite thing—her compound office, doing paperwork. Okay, it wasn’t on paper, but the same principle applied. She actually laughed out loud when she saw the gift I carried, a glorious sound to hear.

She pulled out two beautiful hand-tossed pottery mugs and poured with a brief look of disappointment that the coffee was cold. I suppressed a smirk, and showed off a trick I had tested a few nights before: holding the mug between my palms and channeling a bare thread of Extremis to heat it. “You have expanded your skill set,” she praised me as we sat together and sipped.

“I had to,” I confessed. “Pepper said I had to do what I felt was right, and for lack of a better way to put it, Extremis wouldn’t let me be, until I acknowledged it. I was taught in my old self-defense classes to use whatever I had at hand as a weapon, and I’ve done it before. But in battle, in the critical moment, I was disarmed, afraid for Bucky, distracted by the enemy and his words, so enraged I couldn’t think straight, and I didn’t use what I had left. Extremis lashed out at Thanos, without my even willing it, and without much effect, but I should have done more. I should have turned it on him, full force, even if it cost me my life.”

“From what I saw of him,” Okoye returned, “he was so strong, and so obsessed, that even that might not have turned him from his purpose.”

“Maybe not. Maybe I couldn’t stop him, but I can’t help thinking I should have tried harder. I was a rookie and it was a rookie mistake. It was arrogant of me to insist on joining the fight, even though I couldn’t have lived with myself if I hadn’t. And at least, I was there for Bucky, until the end. Now, there won’t be any other battles for me.”

“Do not disregard what you have, Christine. Clearly you cannot deny the power within you, even if you never again wield the fireblade against a foe.”

“That’s a never, definitely. I couldn’t bear to even look at my uniform, the way I modeled it on Tony’s, and then I chickened out. I didn’t live up to it, to him, and I don’t know that I could ever try again.”

Okoye took a reflective sip from her mug, quiet for a few moments. “When you told me about Tony, when we talked about your uniform--what was the expression you used, that he fell seven times, and got up eight? Your sister is right, you must do what you feel, but if you wish my counsel…You know how we in Wakanda value honor, both for those who are still here and those who are gone ahead to the ancestral plane. If you wish to honor your brother, you will follow in his footsteps, and do that which would make him proud. From what you say, from the way you clearly loved him, I would say with certainty that he would not want you to give up, nor waste the gifts you were given. You failed to stop Thanos, you say, but the greatest assemblage of heroes the earth had ever seen could not stop him, so is it not a bit egotistical to think you could have alone?” 

I thought about Tony’s stories of his experiences in Afghanistan. Even as close as we had become, I suspected to this day there were many things he had never told me, and understandably so; but one in particular rose to mind at this moment. The doctor who had saved Tony’s life in captivity had sacrificed himself to give Tony a chance to escape, and with his dying breath had told Tony not to waste his second chance at life. God knew, Tony hadn’t. _I shouldn’t be alive, unless it was for a reason_. I realized that if I didn’t use every shred of whatever talents I had to their best purpose, I’d be wasting mine, and giving the worst imaginable disrespect I could render to Tony’s memory, and to Bucky’s, and to the Dora Milaje who took me and trained me and treated me as one of their own. “You’re right, _titshala_.”

“Of course I am,” she said smugly.

Our coffee break done, I headed for the farm. It seemed rude to offer Clint the hospitality of the roof Bucky and I had shared, and leave a sword and uniform crammed under the bed for him to stumble over. The goats, not unexpectedly, were in great shape, and the village kids were happy to see me. Elder Tisi strolled behind them at her usual unhurried pace. “I told you, your arms would call to you when you were ready to take them up again,” she told me.

“I don’t know about all that, just yet,” I replied with a little grin, “but I can’t leave them, or any of the abilities that I have, to rot if I think I can use them to help others.”

For all my bold words, I did feel a little shaky when I went into the hut to clean up, and pulled the bundle of the uniform, harness and _mambele_ from its hiding place. Bucky’s presence still haunted every inch of the place that had felt so cozy with him, but felt claustrophobic now. I did a spot of unnecessary tidying and tucked a few of Bucky’s loose things away in the woven basket-chest at the foot of the bed. That done, I brought in a few sticks of firewood, arranged them in the small hearth-pit and sat down beside them. I took a moment, said a silent prayer, and exerted a fraction of will. A faint _woosh_ sounded and a thin stream of flame hit the kindling dead center, exactly where I had aimed it, exactly as strong as I needed for it to be. In a few seconds, a small fire was merrily burning.

It was useless now. Thanos was gone, and I could not undo the damage he had done. There would be more threats ahead, though, and I could use it then, perhaps. Okoye and Pepper had both given me the same advice, in essence. As we say in the South, dance with the one what brung you.

Back in the city, I found a pleasant surprise waiting. “Clint!” I yelped and got grabbed up into a big hug, then backed up and glared at him. “What the fuck did you do to your hair?”

He snorted and ducked his head, shaved down both sides almost to his scalp. “Jot this down, never get a haircut after drinking too much sake. And definitely don’t ask the barber to use your _katana_.” That was clearly a story we all needed to hear, and did over supper, joined by Shuri and Queen Mother Ramonda. Clint expanded on the havoc the mobsters had been wreaking on their own people. He didn’t go into a lot of detail about what he had done in response, except to say he had thoroughly fucked them up, and then called the authorities. “I did it all by the book,” he said, a whiff of bitterness in his voice like smoke in the air. “All by the Accords. Tony’d be proud of me. The local folks wouldn’t have minded me staying, for a while, taking out threats, but I figured sooner or later, it’d get away from me. You guys are all the family I’ve got left, so, here I am, if you can put up with me.”

The responses were silent but universal on every Avenger’s face. Nat, of course, was more demonstrative, and said all she needed to say with a slap up the shaven side of his head. That broke the tension, and once the snickers died down I said, “Bucky would love for you to stay at the farm, if you need some space. I can take you out there tonight if you want to.”

“And if not,” Ramonda said in her usual calm manner, “you may stay here again, and be welcome, as before.”

Clint said he’d think about it, while we ate and talked. Steve and Rhodey had been pretty good tour guides, from Pepper’s account. “It’s helping, a little,” she said. She and Ramonda hit it off, which didn’t surprise me at all, and she and Steve were going out to the farm in the morning. Seeing her reach out and interact, and do a few things to get herself out of her head and her grief, warmed me. Clint decided to crash in the compound and go with them tomorrow. Shuri and I made plans to start my retesting the following afternoon.

The night in my old suite was not much more restless than the previous ones back in the Tower. I was up early though, with a thought and determination. I suited up, swallowing back tears when I looked at myself in the mirror, again the Fireblade. My intent was to grab a sweet bun and slip out, but that plan crashed and burned when I slipped out into the hallway and nearly ran into Pepper. She took in the whole picture, me with my hair up, in the suit with the beaded arc-reactor design on the front, and said, “Oh.” I looked down at it, and up at her, and just nodded.

I didn’t end up making the swift silent escape I’d planned on, but that was okay. Instead of seeing disgust in Pep’s face, there was only understanding. We went to breakfast, and Steve found us there; then we tracked down Clint, who was hanging out in the lab impressing Rocket with his math mojo and learning cuss words in several alien languages in return. It didn't surprise me, and I secretly suspected they might bond over being fathers with lost children. “I like this guy,” Rocket conceded. “Kind of a disaster, but I’m used to that.”

Before going to the farm, Pepper wanted to see Extremis at work; the whole _there but for the grace of God_ thing made complete sense. This could have been her stuck with a power she didn't want. Steve borrowed a speeder and drove us all out to the training grounds, where I got swarmed by my surviving battle-sisters. I was out of shape and out of practice, but when I began drilling with them, I was startled at how quickly the moves came back. A ragged hurrah went up when I fired my blade up, and while I blushed, the Dora as usual threw elbows for the chance to come at me.

My old friends stood at the edge of the bare earth. Steve grinned, Clint swayed with my moves occasionally, and Pepper just tried not to trip over her jaw. We took a break and I halfway wanted to ask what she was thinking, but a telltale shimmer in her eyes let me guess. “ _Titshala_ ,” I asked Okoye, “is there a space I might be able to practice Extremis without my weapon? Or rather, try using it as my weapon, I guess I’m asking.”

She looked at me like I was slightly nuts, and I quailed inwardly for a beat, till a ferocious smile took over her face. She made an expansive gesture at the center of the field, as though inviting me onto a dance floor. “Is this not good enough? We will step back, but we do not fear you.”

After a pause to orient myself, I reached inside and pulled out a ball of energy. My hyperacute ears caught a collective gasp from those around me at the sight of the fire in my hand. It felt tingly and strangely malleable in my grip. I tossed it up and caught it a few times, trying to treat it like an especially weird rubber ball, but thankful for the vibranium-infused fabric I was wearing. A sneaky peek at the sidelines revealed Steve was the one about to trip over his jaw now; Clint’s eyes were huge, but Pepper was actually smiling a little bit. Heartened, I tossed the fireball higher, caught it, and wondered if I could persuade it to take other semi-solid shapes I could hold. I wished I’d ever learned how to make balloon animals, because the orb had that squishy feeling, then remembered Tony jokingly calling Strange Doctor Balloon Animal and had to force down a pang. No time for the luxury of grief, right now, when I held a little chunk of potential destruction in my hand.

Now that I wasn’t fighting it, it held for a good while. It still took concentration, though, and when I felt that start to slip, I considered how best to put the fire out, and settled on just mashing it smoothly between my palms until it dissipated. The cheer this time was louder than before, and I tried to channel a little of Tony and took a dramatic bow. Pepper came over first, cautiously stepping on the dirt beaten down by countless warriors’ feet. Both the dampness of her eyes and the smile on her mouth were steady. “That was beautiful,” she said. “Seeing you able to do that…it would make Tony so happy. He wouldn’t worry so much about you now.”

If our intel was right, and he wasn’t coming home, I believed to my soul he could see me, from the life beyond ours. For a second I could even picture him and Bucky, hanging together and watching over us. I refused to go there with her, though, not here and not now. I just grinned and said, “I’ll buckle down and work on it, and try to get even better by the time he gets back.”

She knew what I was doing, I knew she did, but she hugged me anyway. "I need to teach you how to juggle now," Clint kidded and elbowed Steve. "Cap's speechless, how about that."

We teased Steve gently as I walked them to the speeder. "I’m looking forward to seeing the farm," Pepper said. "When Tony gets home, maybe I can use that to get him to finally give in and buy me that place he’s been threatening for years.”

“Sounds like a plan. I’m in, sis.”

They left; I stayed and worked out, trying some other tricks with Extremis. The group invited me to join them for midday meal, and I really wanted to, but reluctantly had to take a rain check. My to-do list was weighing heavily on my mind. Whenever Thor came back from the Jabari lands, I had to sit the team down and talk about the interview proposal. Like Steve, I didn’t expect him to participate, and honestly, I didn’t expect Clint to either. Considering what they were both grappling with, that was understandable and just fine by me, and consequently was going to have to be just fine with the network, or else they got nothing at all. I needed to hook Rhodey up with a UN rep I had talked to before leaving New York, too, to work out what relief measures could be sent where. Of course, my appointment with Shuri was later today as well. With such a full plate, I nevertheless felt better than I had in a long time, more settled and grounded. Certainly better than at any time since the snap. I counted backward in my head: twenty-two days. How did it feel like just hours ago, and in another lifetime, all at once?

I trotted back to the city, with a sit-down and a bowl of stew uppermost on my mind, until I heard my name called. It came from Cebise, moving quickly toward me down an outdoor walkway. “Christine, I see you are dressed for training. Do you know where the general is? A most unusual signal just came through, and I think she might need to hear it.”

That sounded ominous! “She was eating lunch with the troops when I left a few minutes ago. What’s up, _umhlobo_?” I asked and followed her back into the air control center. 

“It is fragmentary, but definitely a human voice, emanating from a source our sensors picked up entering the atmosphere. The source is in re-entry right now, so we are not receiving anything, but I recorded the earlier transmissions.” A man called out in Wakandan from across the bustling operations room as we entered, and Cebise responded in kind. “Onirri’s called the general and the princess, and they are on their way. Here, I will replay while we wait—perhaps you can piece together the bits we captured.”

She tapped her kimoyo beads against a small translucent pylon at a workstation. After a couple of seconds of static, I began to make out snatches of speech, badly distorted but intelligible. “…kanda…glancing hit from somethi…probably one of mine, isn’t that fucking poetic justice again…know it’s on the right frequency set, if you haven’t changed the encryption code since…can send but can’t hear you if…”

“Male-presenting, and speaking English,” I noted quietly when the audio fuzzed out again. “I don’t know if translator chips work over radio, but Rocket says a few spacefarers do speak an earth language, and those who do would logically try to get here.”

“More to the point,” Cebise said more sharply, “how are they accessing Wakanda’s dedicated radio channels? You know how few humans know how to do that, let alone nonhumans! And our ground station was picking up data from them—that should not be happening—”

“Unless they have crazy advanced tech, but even then, they'd have to know how to set their transponder or equivalent thing on that ship to allow it to communicate with your tech,” I finished. “I remember Tony talking about that, the first time we came here.”

Familiar with the original transmission, Cebise held up her hand to signal me to quiet, just before the static cleared enough to decipher words again. “—o what the fuck they’re doing there, but definitely getting the quinjet pinger’s signal from…” The voice cut out sharply, then returned, but too blurry to be understood. 

“There’s another voice in the background, if you listen closely,” Cebise said, “perhaps female.”

I nodded. “Cebise, how the hell—Tony put proprietary stealth tech on the Avengers’ gear. It made Fury mad as a wet hen that even he couldn’t track them if they didn’t want him to. Nat changed it on our way here to accommodate yours, but she reset it when we landed, I watched her do it. Nobody…”

I stopped. “What?” Cebise frowned.

“I started to say ‘nobody could do that’, but that’s not true. One person could. In fact, I can literally think of only one person in the entire freaking universe who’s capable of all three things we just heard.” I held up fingers one at a time. “Access your radio network, hook up with your ground control, detect the Avengers’ bird.” My fingers closed into a fist and tightened, as I struggled with the emotions overtaking me, and my friend’s eyes grew huge as she too registered what I meant. “Where’s it coming down?” Cebise tapped her bracelet to mine, and a flash of light showed the coordinates transferring. “Okay, I’m heading out there. You’ll tell Okoye and Shuri what I said? And I know the Dragons are on edge, but please don’t let them go off half-cocked and shoot it down. Best-case scenario, we’d lose the chance to question the crew. Worst-case…” I shook my head. “I don’t want to think about that.”

I shot out the door and was half at a gallop across the grounds and street, when Rhodey stepped out of the next building. “Whoa! What’s up, baby girl?”

“Not sure yet.” I tapped the code to connect with Steve’s cell phone onto my beads, then caught Rhodey’s hand in my free one. “Come with me though, please?” Before I could explain, Steve’s voice sounded. “Steve! Are y’all at the farm? Get your butts back here, right now. We’ve got an unknown space vessel, coming in hot, no overt hostility, but at least two crew aboard, one of whom has a lot of knowledge that could only have come from one place, one person.” Rhodey listened with fierce focus as I towed him along and laid it out. “They’re landing here, they have the radio encryption, the transponder settings, and they found the quinjet even on stealth—”

“Tony.” Of course, Rhodey got it first; of course he took that leap with me.

Steve’s voice hardened into full Cap mode. “Whoever they are, they better have a damn good explanation.”

“Yep,” I agreed. “That, or y’all about to see me fry somebody’s ass.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all had to guess Wordsmith Clint was not gonna go full-on Ronin, not as close as the Avengers are here.
> 
> A new word for your Wakandan vocabulary in this chapter-- _uhmlobo_ , or friend in Xhosa, what Chrissy calls Cebise.
> 
> Guesses as to who is on board that incoming ship? :) For that matter, if you are still reading, please put a word in the comments. I haven't gotten one in literally weeks, but of course I know we all have our plates full. Just curious to know if anybody is still here.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The unidentified ship lands to a welcoming committee of Avengers and Wakandans.

The coordinates Cebise had sent me led us to a barren swath of land just beyond the outskirts of the Golden City. It had been a beautiful pastoral grassland, before Thanos’ army had burned and dug it up. Rhodey and I stopped just short, and both of us scoured the skies. “I need to go back for my suit,” he grumbled.

“Fine, go, if you really want to chance missing me hurling fireballs like Super Mario,” I shot back, my focus torn between looking for the approaching mystery ship, and reining in Extremis. It felt my rage and horror, and my yearning to let it loose on someone who might have hurt Tony. In response to the glare I got, I used my beads to pull up a holomap with a blinking spot moving toward our location. “Seriously, it’ll be a couple of minutes, so you ought to have time. Depends on whether you remember where you parked.”

He turned to go, then paused and turned back. “You don’t go out there alone if they land before I get back,” he told me. Before I could argue, he snapped, “That’s an order, Fireblade.”

Holy shit. For the first time he was looking at me not as his ex who needed coddling, but as a fellow fighter with sense enough not to take on a potential enemy short-handed. “Yes sir, War Machine,” I returned evenly.

After another moment spent holding my gaze, he gave me a curt nod, every inch the colonel and Avenger, and dashed off, just as a familiar boom rattled my teeth. Thor landed nearby, Stormbreaker in hand. “Greeting, worthy warrior!” he hailed me, with a smile that tried to be genuine but didn’t quite get there. “Are we expecting battle?”

“Don’t know yet,” I said frankly and filled him in. His face darkened as I spoke, and so did the sky directly overhead. “Thor, hon, cool your jets. A thunder-boomer will tip them off, if they have ill intent.”

“If? How could they not, if they possess this knowledge, that could only have come from—” He grimaced and tensed, and in reply to his effort, the clouds dissipated. 

“The radio signal was awful,” I cautioned. “They could have explained and we missed it. Maybe they…they found Tony before the snap, and he told them how to get here. It’s a long shot, but possible.”

“Long shot?” Rocket said as he trotted up, with Bruce and Nat following. “Story of my life. We heard a ruckus and asked one of the mike jockeys what was up.” I quickly hit the highlights, and he unslung the big weird gun he constantly carried and bared his teeth as though eager to take his grief out on something, anything. “Well, if violence breaks out, the pirate angel and me got yer back, fireball. And little red over there.” He cocked his head toward Nat, then leaned in. “Don’t say anything about it, I can’t afford for my rep to take the hit, but she scares the fur offa me.” Then he raised his voice again toward a worried-looking Bruce. “Doc, you stay outta the way.”

“You have us too!” Okoye called as she and a troop of Dora pulled up in a large speeder. “You know your brother and the situation best, _lomlilo_ , so I will defer to your judgement.” _Lord have mercy, she just put me in charge, sort of._

Thor looked me over with approval. “I wish you could have met my friend Brunhilde, the last of the Valkyries. And Lady Sif, as well. Two of the most redoubtable warriors I have had the honor to fight alongside. To see you three exchange blows in the field would have been the stuff of legend.” Then he frowned again and glanced Rocket’s way. “Sweet rabbit, are you familiar with any spacefaring races who can access the memories of others and pilfer the information therein?”

“None that I can think of. Skrulls can imitate shape, ‘course, but I don’t know that they can steal memories—fuck a fuckin’ _duck_.”

I wanted to say _dude, do you even know what a duck is?_ Then I realized he was looking past me and up, I spun to see a ship, a bit bigger than the one Carol had appropriated for the team, descending (a little too fast, if I were to guess, not that I know anything about landing a freaking spaceship) and coming to rest with a sizable thump. “It’s the _Benatar_ ,” Rocket said from behind me, sounding as though he had been hit with a baseball bat. “My ship, well, our ship.”

Well, that gave things a whole other wrinkle. Okoye was busily tapping at her beads, more advanced than mine. “Cebise advised she picked up two voices on the radio, possibly one male and one female. I detect only two life forms, which would confirm.” Okay, marginally better then, with this many hands on deck plus Steve and Clint en route. And frankly, if we found out whoever was driving this thing had caused Tony to suffer one iota more than what Thanos had already caused, I would suggest without hesitation that we collectively step the fuck aside and let Pepper disembowel them personally.

“Bet it’s Quill and Gamora.” Rocket did not put his weapon down, but he sounded more hopeful. Though I didn’t dare let myself relax, I allowed myself a breath of hope too. If our furry friend’s comrades were arriving, then Tony had likely given them the instructions on how to get here. _Maybe they know something about Peter and Strange too,_ I thought. _Maybe they were there when the snap happened…please God, don’t let the ones we love have suffered._

The ship’s propulsion system whined and wound down, with an occasional grunt or grind. I wasn’t an expert, but it sounded a lot like an older car in need of a tuneup, the kind my uncles would drag out under a tree back home and work over. For a short time, the air was silent except for too few birds calling. Then a hum began, low at first then rising in pitch, as a hatch in the vessel’s underside opened and a set of steps descended. One figure stood in the opening, slim and hairless. Between the dim illumination of the interior, and the blazing brilliance of the midday sun over the plain, I couldn’t make out more, but I thought _oh for fucks sake, don’t tell me we’ve got alien greys off the cover of the tabloids to contend with._

Rocket’s eyes were sharper, maybe, or he just knew what he was looking at; he shifted and muttered, “Nebula?” So, not either person he had expected, but someone he knew, then: a good sign, I prayed.

The figure took one step forward, then halted and looked behind them—or her, I thought, now that I could discern shape a bit better, she looked female. She retreated, her head still turned, and appeared to be exchanging words with someone. I’d bet it was the male we had heard trying to radio the ground. She moved out of the hatchway, only to reappear a moment later with one arm around the waist of a second figure. This one was thin too, slightly taller but stooped as if from fatigue or weakness, with unkempt hair sticking up from their head. I bit my lip, thinking with an ache of Tony on an engineering binge, just before Pepper threatened to bodily hurl him into the shower (or seduced him in by offering to join him). 

The two started down the steps slowly. They held onto each other for the first few risers, then the male pulled away, straightened and smoothed his clothing. The breath left my body in a rush; I shouldn’t have let myself be distracted, because now even that movement reminded me of Tony Fucking Stark, determined to face whatever life threw at him with a flash of teeth and a shot of attitude—

Two things happened simultaneously, in the next moment. The wuzz of repulsors sounded from behind and above us, signaling Rhodey’s return. The new arrivals looked up, the female clearly tensed, and the male—he visibly gasped and stumbled down a couple more steps into the light. The short jacket he wore opened at the chest and showed something glowing there, something I registered along with a shocked face I had accepted I would never see again this side of heaven. “Shit fire and save box matches,” I breathed.

My knees trembled, and then without quite remembering how I started, I was sprinting across the bare ground. If anybody else was following, I didn’t know, or care. Even Extremis couldn’t outrun War Machine, though; Rhodey swooped overhead and dropped with no heed, just in time to catch the apparition before he faceplanted into Wakandan soil. “I thought we agreed, next time you were riding with me!” Rhodey half-snarled loudly when his faceplate popped up.

“Come on, honeybear, cut me some slack. The funvee was leaving, what’d you expect me to do—” The voice hit me like a sonic spear blast. I was close enough now to see the face, when he looked up—the eyes, _Tony’s eyes_ , huge and wet, just before he gasped Rhodey’s name and threw his arms around the suit’s neck. 

Running flat-out with Extremis fueling me, I was afraid I could knock anything short of a battle rhino for a loop. I slid to a halt, almost smelling the hot leather of my boot soles like burning tire rubber on asphalt. “I gotcha, Tones, oh God, I gotcha,” Rhodey repeated.

“—so fuckin’ scared I’d never get back, and if I did everybody I loved‘d be gone…” 

My voice, when I got it to work, was a squeak. “Tony?”

His eyes were closed, tears streaking down his cheeks, and Rhodey’s gauntleted hand cupped the back of his head as they embraced. When I spoke, though, they popped open and focused on me, and a shaky, sweetly familiar smile curled his mouth. “Chrissy, oh _fuck_ , Chrissy.”

Rhodey shifted to one side, and I threw myself into Tony’s arms. “ _Ubhuti, ubhuti_ …oh God, he said he killed you, that son of a bitch…”

“Who?”

“Thanos!”

Tony moved back just far enough to look me in the face, his brows knitting in confusion. “Wait, what—how--what the hell were you doing with—”

“He—we fought him, when he came here, and he saw this—” I freed one arm from around him ( _Lord, he’s so thin_ ) and touched the design on my harness, then dared brush my fingers against the nanite housing merrily glowing on his chest. “He saw it, and he asked if I was with you, and he said he-he hoped I would survive, so somebody could carry your memory because you were so brave and str-strong—” I fought back a sob. “I know!” I said to the scowl forming across his beautiful battered face. “I know, I know you’re mad at me, thank God you’re here to be mad at me. Pepper told me, dammit, she told me, Chrissy, why would you listen to a giant overripe eggplant??”

“Pep—she’s okay?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said. “She’s with Steve and Clint, they’re on their way.”

With a clash of blue-sky thunder Thor landed beside us and practically snatched Tony up off the ground into a hug. “Anthony!” he roared. “You give me hope, my friend. If you could find your way back to us, anything is possible.”

“Well—oof--you always did say everything could be explained except me. Hey, you got scalped,” he added when he noticed Thor’s hair cropped short. “Brought you back a present, hang on a—”

Whatever Tony was about to say was cut short when more footfalls pounded the dirt behind me. Bruce and Nat raced forward, Nat all but climbed Tony, and Bruce almost followed suit. 

The female who had landed with Tony sat down on the steps, looking suddenly small and alone as she watched him swamped in an Avengers dogpile of love. Her skin was a clear blue, broken here and there by pieces and patches of metal. I approached her, wiping my face of the tears that just refused to be held back. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for bringing my brother back safely to us. I mean, he isn’t my blood kin, but—”

“You are Christine? He spoke of you,” she said, her voice steady. I would have said her tone was mechanical, but there was a hint of emotion there that could not be denied. “The sister of his heart, he named you. I understood. My sister and I looked nothing alike, yet still we were sisters. I see the same in your eyes. I am…glad I had a hand in returning him to his family.”

Something brushed against my leg: Rocket’s tail. “Hey, Neb. Where’s Quill? Couldn’t he be bothered to even show up for a party on earth…” 

At the bleak gaze of her big dark eyes, his words trailed off. “He is dead,” she said. “Killed by Thanos, as the others, as we almost were.” Rocket began to swear in several languages.

Okoye and her troopers walked over, casual but careful. I almost laughed at the covetous looks a couple of the Dora were giving to the ship, and the way they all walked around looking at it and chatting among themselves. Suddenly, though, the small crowd that had formed parted like the Red Sea. The small speeder with Steve at the controls zipped in and stopped with a jerk and a cloud of dust. 

Pepper nearly fell headlong out of the vehicle in her haste, froze for a second when Tony looked up, and practically levitated across the gap between them and into his arms. He murmured something, too softly for even my ears to catch, but Pep looked torn between laughing and crying at it. “Tears of joy,” she said, pulling back and catching his face in her hands. “At my age, the thought of dating again is terrifying.”

Clint stepped closer cautiously, his hand out as thought he was afraid this was an illusion. “Barton!” Tony grinned when he saw him coming. “Listen very closely, birdboy, you may never hear this from me ever again…but damn, it’s good to see you.”

He put out his own hand, assuming I suppose that Clint intended to shake it. Clint glared at it as though it had personally offended everything he held dear. “Fuck that shit,” he growled and caught Tony up in a desperately tight hug. It didn’t surprise me, after Clint had lost Laura and their kids, that he would react so strongly to someone else he had lost returning safely. “ _Nana korobi yaoki_ ,” he murmured when they finally parted.

Steve dove in for a hug of his own. “Good to have you back, Shellhead,” he said simply, and Tony’s smile widened even more. 

“So, uh, hi, everybody,” Tony said. “Wish I could’ve gotten souvenirs for everybody, not every day you get to go on a scenic tour of the nether regions of the universe, pretty busy trip, working vacation, you know, didn’t have time to send postcards…” Pepper slid an arm around his waist and squeezed him, whispering something in his ear. Personally, I could have listened to him ramble for the rest of the day, impractical as that was, because it was like the sweetest music ever penned. “Right. Ms. Potts as usual reminds me to stay on topic. My traveling companion and I did bring something back though. Smurfette, if you’d do the honors?”

“I am not a ‘smurfette’,” Nebula grumbled, but with an air of tolerant amusement I recognized instantly. 

“Oh Lord,” I muttered to Rhodey, trying not to laugh, “Tony’s adopted another one.” He snorted through his tears and nodded.

Tony swayed a bit, and Pepper and I guided him to sit on the steps while Nebula went back into the ship, presumably to retrieve whatever they had brought back to earth. “This bunch of, ah, individuals, calling themselves the Guardians of the Galaxy—they knew you, Thor, didn’t think much of your look apparently—” 

Thor looked baffled. Rocket gave a bitter little laugh, like a small sneeze. “Depends on who you asked. Must’ve been Quill.”

Tony gazed down at him, with a sudden look of horror. “Um, I’m not hallucinating all this, am I? Because that raccoon just—”

“Can the insults, glowbaby, and continue with the report,” Rocket snapped.

“Ah…yeah, okay, Rascal, whatever.” 

“Rocket.”

“Ratchet,” Tony returned. “Anyway, we crossed paths with them and ended up double-teaming Thanos. It…didn’t end well.” Pepper gulped. “I lost the kid.” Nat covered her mouth in horror, and Steve looked like he might fall over. Tony was silent for a second, then shivered a little and continued. “Blue Meanie in there and I were the only ones who got away clean, but then this old tub conked out on us. We were adrift for a—well, a while, till we got picked up and towed in by a couple of scavengers.” He lifted his head, and everybody followed his gaze, to where a second ship had appeared and was descending. “Funny story, point break. Half the universe seems to know you, and several of them insisted on coming along to get re-acquainted.”

The newcomers landed not far away. Their hatch opened, and three figures emerged. One was a tough-looking woman in armor, the second massive and grey like a walking pile of stone, and the third was a tall, thin insect-like creature. Bruce and Thor both yelled in delight and rushed to meet them. “At your service, majesty,” the swordswoman said to Thor with an ironic grin.

“Eh, still not big on the whole monarchist thing,” the stone-being countered, “but definitely glad to see you both again, my friends.” The insect-guy made chittery noises and clapped them both on the back. 

One more humanoid figure emerged from the ship then. Thor’s chuckles died, and he stood and stared. “Loki?” he managed.

“Such shock!” Loki replied, his typical smirk in place but contradicted by a light of joy in his eyes. “You have so little faith in me, my brother. I told you the sun would shine on us again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I say every now and then 'this is a part I've been looking forward to posting for a long time'? Yep, this is one of those. Chrissy has been running across that field in my mind's eye for months. So happy she finally got to do it for y'all. 
> 
> Handing out virtual cookies again, this time for theories as to what Tony's first words to Pepper were :) 
> 
> The words Clint says are Japanese, and they translate to the same saying Chrissy always uses to describe Tony: fall down seven times, stand up eight.
> 
> Granted, y'all had to know I wasn't about to leave Tony hanging out there in space, but I don't know how many of you expected the other arrival! The way the MCU disposed of Loki in the main timeline was beyond dumb and poorly done, I thought, so, another thing they handed me to fix. LOL. Loki and his companions will explain in the next chapter what went down in this verse.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Loki and the Revengers fill the team in on what's transpired since Thor parted ways with them, including how Tony and Nebula were rescued!

Tony, being Tony, insisted he was “fine, just jet lagged, well, several orders of magnitude past that, who knows how the fuck many time zones difference between here and—what’s that planet of yours called, Reindeer Games? By the way, Thor, I did get around to apologizing to him; your bro is pretty decent when he’s not being mind-controlled, should’ve given him the benefit of the doubt before, maybe, but…”

While he was babbling, he was trying to stand up and head toward the nearby compound entrance. He made it all of three or four steps from the ship before he halted. Both feet planted flat on the ground, but his body lurched forward as though it hadn’t gotten the signal to stop. Half the people surrounding him, myself included, moved in at the same time. Steve got to him first and swept him bodily up into his arms, declaring, “You need to be seen by medical.”

“Cap. Put me down, goddammit, ‘m marryin’ Potts, not you,” Tony mumbled and then went limp.

I gulped, but Pepper grinned through a few tears and checked on him. “He’s okay,” she said. “He just used up all his energy getting home.”

Shuri met us at the entrance with a maglev stretcher, and Steve deposited his load there, just as Tony got a second wind and started to squirm. “Stay here,” Pepper ordered. “You stay right here.”

Tony squinted at her, as though his mind had gone hazy for a second; then his eyes cleared and he let out a breath. “Not going anywhere,” he promised quietly, then flopped over onto his side and clasped her hand. He did peer over the edge of the conveyance as Okoye led her troop back to their duties and the rest of us followed inside. “Ooh. New experience. Regular magic carpet here. Disney should sign you up, they could use an actual princess on their roster…”

Shuri kept a straight face, but just barely, and she very nearly did lose it when she glanced over at me with my face about to split from tearful grinning. She led the stretcher into a cubicle in the medical building, where a team was ready to check Tony over, and ushered everybody else out. I would have loved to stay, and judging from his expression so would Rhodey, but Pepper, as usual, already had everything well in hand (and Tony wasn’t letting go of hers), so we led the other Avengers and the new arrivals to the nearest vacant space for explanations.

Loki was griping almost as much as Tony had been, because his brother seemed uninclined to let go of him. Well, he griped, but he wasn’t making a concerted effort to break loose, so I suspected he was just as glad to see Thor, though he probably would have sooner chewed his own arm off than admitted it out loud. “How?” Thor demanded as the group settled itself in a large meeting area that echoed eerily. “I saw Thanos slay you, brother!”

“You saw what I intended for _him_ to see,” Loki replied tartly. “I had credited you with rather more perception than that aubergine fool. I utilized my _seidr_ to suspend my consciousness within a stone in my dagger, with the thought he might decide to purloin it, and thereby take me into his figurative bosom. Figurative,” he added with a grimace. “Fortunately for my psyche at least, our lovely larcenous Brunhilde saved me after his departure.” 

The swordswoman snorted. “As if I’d leave anything of value behind if I could avoid it?” she sniped, though in what sounded like a good-natured way. “Anyway, once we got the survivors and ourselves into the Statesman’s escape pod, Loki—manifested, reconstructed, whatever—and Korg and Miek helped me scan for a habitable planet to put down on. We landed shortly before…” Her voice trailed off, and we all nodded, knowing exactly what she meant. There had to be only a handful of Asgardians left now, I reflected sadly, between Thanos’ attack on them and then the snap./p pThe big rock-being, Korg I thought, took up the account. “The planet was inhabited, though not densely and even less so after this—this lunatic did his thing. We had to keep ourselves up, so Brunhilde got the idea to do a bit of scavenging. Lots of spacecraft out there, just drifting, drifting along with their crews snapped.” Carol had mentioned the same thing; it was how she had gotten the Avengers’ ship after all. “Better they find new purpose, after all, right?”

“We checked out yonder wreck,” Brunhilde went on, “picked up two faint life-signs, boarded to see what was what. Thought the fellow was done for, and miss blue-skies there,” she nodded toward a glaring Nebula, “had shut herself down, or so we thought, till she nearly sliced my head off.”

“You were all for casting him out the airlock,” Nebula hissed. 

“She was not!” Korg objected. “Well, maybe, for a couple shakes of an _armapi_ ’s tail, but I wasn’t about to let that happen. Solidarity among all life forms, that’s my motto, especially when the alternative is wiping half of all of them off the star-chart!”

“Besides the kiss of her steel,” Brunhilde continued with a grumpy look, “she had quite the story to tell, so we thought it best to bring them both back and let the prince here have a go.”

“I told them,” Nebula interjected, in the low tight voice that seemed her usual one, “if you want Thanos stopped, you will take us to Stark’s world. A wizard bartered an Infinity Stone to keep him alive.”

That got a reaction, needless to say. “So Thanos told the truth,” Steve marveled.

Nebula scoffed at him. “My father is many things, but a liar is not one of them.”

“Was,” Thor said quietly. “I slew him, in a farm hut on a world far from here, when we tracked him there and learned he had destroyed the Stones.”

The glare Nebula turned on Thor now looked like she was wishing she'd gotten to the Titan first. “Your father,” Nat said to her. “Rocket told us another of Thanos’ daughters was part of his crew. Your sister?”

Nebula’s dour face twitched. “She was. Gamora knew where one of the Stones was. Thanos tortured me to force her to tell him where, then he took her with him, and came back without her. I am certain he killed her there.” From his seat beside her, Rocket almost growled aloud, and his small paw crept onto her knee. She looked down and covered it with her hand.

“Anyway,” Brunhilde went on after a moment’s thick silence all around, “that sounded like something Prince Loki needed to know, so we took them on board and towed their ship back with us. Loki recognized the man instantly, though he appeared a good bit worse than you see him now—they had been adrift for fifteen or sixteen days, as they reckoned it, and we’ve fed and watered him up a good bit since then—and was quite pleased to see him.”

“Pfft,” Loki waved the words off. “I was surprised to see Stark in space, considering his dislike of the place, and curious to learn how he came to be in such a state, that is all.” If Pepper had been there, I suspected he might not have put on such a flippant front. I couldn’t hold back a wince at the thought of how much worse condition Tony must have been in, for a couple of apparently experienced space hands to assume the worst when they saw him, and to look as rough as he still did after the Asgardians’ care. Bruce saw me make a face, and misinterpreted it. “You might wanna back off on the insults, even in fun, Lokes,” he said. “You know how protective Tony and Chris get of each other, and she’s sitting right there beside you, and she’s got a few new tricks up her sleeve.”

I rolled my eyes at Bruce. “Oh stop. I know what he means,” I said, and gave Loki a smile, partly to reassure him and partly to distract him from making me a topic just now. “Go on. You got Tony and Nebula, here, back to your camp, so to speak, and...”

“Treated his wounds, fed and hydrated him, and would have obliged him to stay with us a while longer to regain some strength. Nothing would suit him, however, but to render that rattletrap of a vessel space-worthy again and return to Earth with all haste.”

“Miek and I were all for coming with them, to find our brothers in the struggle against injustice,” Korg put in, and his insectoid companion clattered his jaws and bobbed his head in obvious agreement. “Brunhilde…less so.”

“I’m no hero!” she protested. “But once Loki decided he had to come along too, I didn’t have much choice. He left Sif in charge—”

“Sif lives?” Thor burst out, looking brighter than we had seen him in ages.

Loki, on the other hand, looked as close to abashed as it was probably possible for him to. “She does. She, uh, found her way to the encampment, just before we departed for Earth, and given the trust the remnant of our people have in her, I asked her to take up the role of leader—until hopefully, we found you, my brother.” Loki stepped closer to Thor. “Do not ever put me in such a position again. Conquering a people is great fun, but leading a people? Settling all their petty grievances, making all the decisions? Is. Not. Fun!”

Thor burst into laughter and pulled his brother into an embrace. Loki let out an oof in response, but he didn’t try to fight his way out either. As people relaxed and began to separate into smaller groups and talk, Nebula stepped over to Steve and said something too quiet for even my ears to catch. He looked surprised, then nodded and led her to the door, picking up Bruce, Nat and Clint along the way, so I suspected it was some intel about Thanos that she as his daughter knew and thought the Avengers should.

I started to follow, but Loki stepped in front of me. “Odd to see you kitted out as a warrior, madame wordsmith! Were your Avengers that short of hands to raise weaponry against Thanos, or would you not be denied?”

“It’s…a long story.” I told him the highlights, as quickly as possible, and he listened intently.

“Ah,” he said, “so I was correct, the force in you was no sort of _seidr_. I hope you struck some good blows against that churl, at the least.”

“I tried,” I admitted and turned my gaze on my boots. “I failed.”

“Hmph. Humans. Why do you all seem to think you should be able to succeed at things other species don’t even dream?” I looked up in surprise at his tone, more amused and even reassuring than scornful. “If my bullheaded demigod of a brother could make no dent, you, a mortal, remarkable though you are, should hardly fault yourself. That place in my household is still open, by the way. I am even more intrigued now that I hear of your powers.”

“I can demonstrate sometime, if you like,” I managed a small laugh in reply. “I have a lover though, and he was taken by Thanos. I don’t plan to make major changes in my life or career until, well, until any and all chance of getting him back are exhausted.”

Loki nodded, and looked as though he might have said more, but just then Thor glommed onto him and hauled him off. “Really, must you drag me about like a child’s long-lost favorite toy?” Loki’s fake complaint trailed behind them. For a second I considered following them; but I had another place to be. Turning away, I retraced my path through the corridors of the complex back to the medical unit.


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy and Tony reunite and catch up.

In the medical wing, the room was no longer packed with treatment staff; just Pepper, seated beside a bed. Tony lay still, his eyes closed and IVs set up and dripping. I tapped lightly on the door frame and she looked up, her sharp frown softening into a smile when she saw me. “How’s he doing?” I whispered.

“Not bad. Dehydrated and exhausted, mostly.” I nodded, slipped inside and quickly passed along what Loki and his companions had shared. “Of course he wouldn’t stay put long enough to get better,” she sighed, looking him over.

“Of course not, silly, he had to get back here to you.” I hugged her sideways, then glanced over at a movement at the door. 

Nebula stood there with a wrecked sphere of machinery under her arm—in a second, I recognized it as a ruined Iron Man helmet. “I have something I must give to you,” she said, looking past me to Pepper.

Pep looked uncertain, but I gently nudged her and said, “Go on, sis, I’ll sit with him.” With one more look toward the bed, as if to be absolutely sure this was real and Tony was really lying there dozing, she slipped out with Nebula and I took her place in the chair.

I got as comfortable as I could, which wouldn’t have been so difficult if I weren’t in full battle gear. Resigned to my state, since I had gone straight into the team briefing and then come here instead of going to my suite to change into real clothes, I sat and listened to the soft peeps of monitors and watched Tony breathe. For the first time in weeks, I felt like I could breathe too.

It was meditative, for a while, until I shifted and the short half-guard of my _mambele_ poked me right in the neck. Suppressing a grumble, I started to squirm out of the harness, but I couldn’t without standing up, and I didn’t want to disturb Tony. Just then, he stirred, blinked up at the ceiling and said, “Pep?” in a suddenly distressed tone.

“Hey, hot rod. She had to step out for a sec, but she’ll be right back.” His head turned toward me with a fuzzy squint. “Just me. Shitty substitute, I know.” 

His face cleared and that little smile reappeared like sun peeking out from behind clouds. “Sorry, neither.”

I had to giggle. Leave it to him to return from the dead with a really old Star Trek joke. The next instant, it took everything in me to not let the laugh turn into a sob. I slipped my hand into his, noting with a pain his scraped skin and his nails broken into the quick. His fingers curled slowly around mine and we just smiled at each other like dopes for a minute; then he smacked his lips. “Sure could use a drink. Any bars open today? Any bars in Wakanda, for that matter?”

“Yes, there are, and the sauce on their menus would curl your hair.” I got him a cup of water and raised the head of the bed so he could drink.

“Glad you’re still on the job,” he said once his whistle was wet. “Have you had to beat down a pack of crazy rumors since I left on my business trip? Or maybe started a few, for fun?”

“No to both, actually, although it won’t really surprise anybody to hear you dropped from the sky with a beautiful blue companion.”

He let out a dry laugh and coughed a little. “Smurfette might stab you if she heard that. She’s vicious.”

“Obviously,” I returned, “especially when it comes to protecting you, from what Loki and his companions said.”

Tony scoffed, but the crinkles at the corners of his eyes said he was fighting a smile at Nebula’s solicitude. After a moment, the whiff of amusement evaporated. “How bad is it, Chrissy?” he asked quietly. “Pep wouldn’t tell me who we lost here. Buck, though, I know that. I knew when I saw you flying at me and he wasn’t keeping super-soldier pace right beside you.” Before I could decide whether to tell him or make him rest, he sat up a little straighter against the raised head of the bed and glared at me. “And just what the fuck is going on with that anyway? And this?” He waved a hand at me. “I know, you said you had ‘workout gear’, and you were using tools to work with Extremis, but a sword?? Really?”

I spread my hands helplessly, and did my best to explain how I had come to terms with Extremis and learned to handle it, more or less, and why I hadn’t told my friends until Thanos was on his way. “All hands on deck, bro. I did what I had to do. It wasn’t enough, but I had to try. I had to…but—” The grief and horror of seeing Bucky crumble rose before me like an ocean wave ready to engulf me. I swallowed, looked away, but could not run. I had promised Pepper not to leave Tony alone, and I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to dump my pain on him.

“Hey.” Tony’s abused hands folded over mine. “You tried, cornbread. That’s all I did, all anybody could’ve done. We all failed. So even if we weren’t in the same place, we failed together, like Cap always said. We’re not gonna give up. There was a way to dust ‘em, there has to be a way to bring ‘em back. We find Thanos, we get the Stones—”

“Tried that,” I said. “I mean, I didn’t, but the team did. He destroyed the Stones.” 

“They tracked him down? Then maybe we can get him to tell us where, and, I dunno, reconstruct them?”

“He’s dead.” I squeezed his hands gently. “Not saying there’s not a way, Tony. If anybody can find one, or make one, it’s gonna be you, ubhuti, I know it. Just, not that way.” 

He let out an exasperated huff and flopped back against the pillows. “Not enjoying binging this show, since I clearly missed all the important plot twists of last season.” Then he laughed. “Is it weird that I’m almost relieved? That purple bastard has been in my head for years, I kept gaming all the worst-case scenarios, and now, now…it’s over. The worst happened. So now we deal, and we get moving.” 

“We get moving,” I echoed. “But first, you rest, and eat when you’re cleared to, and get your strength back. I can’t believe I was stupid enough to believe that gate-mouthed son of a bitch when he said he killed you, and I led everybody else to believe it and—argh!”

“Yeah, you never sell me short like that!” he pretended to scold. “I’ve risen from the ashes so many times, I shit charcoal.” My pent-up emotion burst out in a guffaw, and he pulled me into his arms (I went carefully—even knowing how tough he was, he looked and felt so fragile right now). “Can you tell me who?” he asked softly. “So, y’know, I’m not expecting to see ‘em, and then embarrass myself by asking?”

So, I did, and caught him up on the basic status of the earth. Pepper returned as I was finishing up, or rather, as he was dozing back off. I extricated myself from his embrace, and went to hug her. “You okay?” I whispered when I saw how red her eyes were. 

“Yeah.” She swiped at her face, trying to get herself back in line. “He, uh, recorded messages for me, while they were drifting. Nebula brought me the helmet, so I could hear them.”

“Oh. That means you have to let him listen to your voicemails then. Fair’s fair.” 

That made her giggle and hiccup, which roused Tony just enough to open one eye and smile up at her hazily. “Hey, boss…”

I excused myself and slipped outside. Standing and gazing up at the brilliant night sky and breathing the soft air of Wakanda with a silent prayer for strength helped me to settle my tangled emotions. I tensed when I spied a bright spot moving overhead and drawing closer, until Rhodey stepped out another door from the main complex building. He held something small in his hand, and looked intently at it, then upward with a sudden grin, as I registered the identity of the bright speck, a speck no longer. The glow of Carol’s power swept across the quiet road and pathways.

She landed lightly in front of Rhodey, and they exchanged smiles, before he all but collapsed into her arms. It was good to know the man I still cared so much for had found an old flame rekindled more fiery than before. I turned away silently to go back inside, torn between happiness at seeing the joy my friends took in the presence of those they loved, and pain at knowing I might never get that chance. Dwelling on the latter wasn’t going to do a hill of beans’ worth of good, though. All we could do was what Tony had said: deal with what we had, get up and get going and not give up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eerily, the day after I wrote this chapter, I read this article about our current situation and how folks with anxiety are coping, and it echoes Tony's feelings here in such a strange yet appropriate way.  
> https://www.thedailybeast.com/coronavirus-is-making-a-lot-of-people-anxious-and-depressed-but-some-sufferers-actually-feel-better-now
> 
> The 'sorry, neither' line comes from Lieutenant Uhura in a classic episode of Star Trek, when she is called a fair maiden. LOL


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy gets back to work, helping her teammates organize themselves, lining up a new training partner, and starting Marcus Tate's interview video.

First thing in the morning, I checked back in the medical wing and found Pepper at Tony’s side again (if she’d ever left). Unsurprisingly, he was not being compliant about staying in bed and on IVs. “I need to get to work, and I need a cheeseburger. Well, whatever the Wakandan equivalent is. You know I don’t turn my nose up at anybody’s cuisine, and every culture has something involving meat, bread and coagulated cow juice. Yeah, okay, maybe I did puke up the Asgardian stew—wait, who told you that? had to be Gorignak, he’s unnervingly conscientious and good-natured for a rock monster, proof never to judge by appearance I guess, but he’s gone down a tick on my list if he ratted me out. Anyway! Come on, Pep, work with me here!”

“I’ll sit on you, if I have to,” Pepper threatened. 

Of course, that got about the response anybody who knew Tony, most especially Pep, would expect: wiggled eyebrows, if weaker than his usual lechery, and a leer of “You promise? That would keep me in bed, but if making me rest is your goal, not gonna do the job, Potts. I can smell whatever they are cooking and it smells like heaven. What is that Southern thing you say, cornbread—my stomach thinks my throat’s been cut? I just got back from starving in fucking space and now you sadists are trying to finish the job!”

“I’ll try to find your attending and ask,” I returned and hugged Pepper and him. “They’ll know when you can start eating and what. I hope it’s soon too. Their food’s so good. You’ll love it. And their coffee, dear Lord!”

“I didn’t know Wakanda grew coffee,” Tony said with a suspicious look.

“Neither does anybody else outside Wakanda,” I said with a wicked small grin, and his face brightened. “Seriously, I’ll see if I can put a bug in the appropriate ear in a little while.”

Shuri came by while I was there, trailed by Goose, and put her foot down, but Tony still whined (though he did enjoy meeting her furry assistant more than I would have expected). So the princess sent in a tiny fire-breather of an elder lady doctor, to cuss his stubbornness and the whole situation in Wakandan, threaten to knock him out to make him rest, and reel off a string of orders. I had never, ever before seen Tony meekly say, “Yes, ma’am,” but he still looked pouty and mutinous when I left.

The landing of the _Benatar_ had sparked a new flame in all the Avengers. I spent the morning getting myself on the same page with the team, since my promise to record a group interview still stood, and I thought I’d use that time to also record a quick update for the press and public. Thor and Loki told me about their hopes for the remnant of their people. Rhodey and Carol wandered by (together, and coming from the direction of the dining area I had shown her to on her initial arrival. _Uh-huh_ , I thought and hid a smile) and joined the conversation. Carol had met Odin and Frigga once or twice too, and offered her sympathies. Rhodey had touched base with the UN liaison office the previous week, helping them wherever in the Snap-ravaged world War Machine could help, and when Loki said they would like to move their people to earth if space could be found, Rhodey suggested his contacts there might be handy.

I left them hashing that out and swung by the labs. Shuri was up to her eyebrows in running Wakanda, but she said she had to carve out a few hours here and there to spend in the science she loved, or else lose what sanity she had left. She pledged to set a firm time in the next few days to retest me and Extremis. Bruce was there too, eagerly revisiting every theory he had had to reverse the Snap and listing them to run by Tony when he was able. He had drafted Clint to check some of his equations (fun fact: Hawkeye is a mathematical magician), who in between doing that was learning cuss words in several alien languages from Rocket. “I like this guy,” Rocket said. “Kind of a disaster, but I’m used to that. Plus, he, uh, lost kids too, so, he gets me.”

Steve was at the farm, they told me. Nat was huddling with Nakia, who had found out about Nat’s work with Snap-orphaned kids and asked if she could help make connections for Wakanda’s science outreach program with agencies in the US. Nebula had gone with them; Rocket said hearing mention of orphans had piqued her interest. Turned out she was not Thanos’ biological child; he had stolen kids from many planets he had invaded, and raised them to be his elite warriors. “So, he was even more warped than I thought,” I said with a grimace.

“Yep,” Rocket agreed. “Gamora talked more about it than she did. Didn’t talk much about anything, really; Nebula, I mean. Your guy Stark may have put a dent in that though—she sat up half the night with little red, talking knives.” That was nice. Not the staying up half the night part, but the feeling comfortable enough to sit and talk shop part. After hearing Korg’s account of how Nebula had defended Tony, I was fond enough of her already; and having had to see her friends vanish, as we had, she could, I figured, use all the support she could get.

As I left the labs, I met Loki’s traveling companions, roaming around the royal complex sightseeing and quietly freaking out the few folks they encountered. To keep everybody’s minds from getting blown, I took them under my wing and out onto the streets for a little walking tour of the Golden City. We talked as we walked, and I was the one whose mind got blown when I realized Brunhilde was a Valkyrie. A _real_ Valkyrie. She was decidedly not interested in talking about it, but finally muttered after the conversation had moved on, “I am the last. My sisters all fell in battle. I—exiled myself, you could say. Planned to drink and forget. Then I got entangled with this lot—” she playfully shoved Korg, who blinked and barely budged. “And the next thing I knew, they had dragged me off with them, expecting me to be some kind of hero.”

“You are,” Korg said simply, then smiled and waved at a group of kids across the street. She cut her eyes at him, and kicked a rock, but didn’t argue. I suspected the issue was more that he and his friends had wakened something in her she had hoped to drown in alcohol. 

My fangirl impulses got a little out of hand. “I have trained with a sword a little bit,” I said before I even knew it was coming. “Maybe you could give me some pointers sometime? No pressure, but how can I not at least ask?”

She gave me an indulgent little smile. “You do know we too were considered gods by your kind? I'd be hard pressed not to break you.”

“Hey!” Korg protested. “Don’t insult her if she’s just looking for help.”

“She’s right,” I countered, silently panicking. “She’d probably knock me on my ass.” Suddenly, I saw the pride in Bucky’s eyes the first time I held my own against him, and heard Fury’s dry tone: _own your fierce, Miss Everhart_. “You learn by going against somebody better, though. That’s how I’ve learned what little I know so far. In fact, Brunhilde, I know some people you might really like to meet.” I described the Dora Milaje, and while she was clearly trying to stay cool, the idea of another force of elite woman warriors lit her eyes up. “I can get a speeder to run us out to their training grounds…” I paused. “Sorry, I have to think where to get that. I usually run,” I admitted.

Korg frowned. “You said it was a fair distance to go on foot. Wouldn’t bother any of us, but seems quite a haul for you to run regularly, smallish human and all. No offense.”

“None taken. And I’m, uh, not entirely human, I guess.” That got their attention, and once again I had to give a Reader’s Digest condensed version of Extremis, while the four of us jogged out of Birnin Zana after I called ahead to alert my battle-sisters.

By the time we arrived, Brunhilde’s mild condescension had evaporated. “Now I truly do want to spar with you! You will stay?”

“My gear isn’t here,” I apologized, actually thinking now that this might be fun. “I do have a real job that needs my attention. But we will before I go back to America, I promise! It’s been, um, a while since I could use Extremis with somebody I wasn’t afraid of hurting.” I greeted several Dora who came over to welcome the visitors, warned them their visitor was going to be a handful, and headed back to town, missing Bucky anew.

Before I ticked off the next item on my to-do list, I thought I’d check in on Tony again. A familiar figure came out the door down the hall in the medical wing before I reached it, though, and the sight nearly stopped my heart. “Ah, greetings, _lomlilo_ ,” Shaman Utu said when I met him in a rush. “You must be rejoicing that your beloved friend has returned.”

I almost gasped with relief at his usual serene demeanor unruffled. “I am! But you scared me for a second here. In America at least, when we see a faith leader emerge from an ill person’s room, it often signals the worst. I was afraid Tony had gotten sicker since I was here earlier.”

Utu chuckled, seeming amused in his quiet way. “No, not at all. I value your friendship, and our conversations, and I wished to meet the man who you love as your blood. He is very much his own person, is he not?” While I giggled and nodded, he went on, “His beloved is, as well. In another life, I think she could have fought alongside the Dora. _Formidable_ is a mild descriptor for Ms. Potts. They are well suited, those two, and truly blessed.”

Relieved, I agreed, and he excused himself to continue his rounds. In the room, Pepper looked pleased with herself, though her nose was pink as though she had wept again. Tony was reclining in bed, but he had clearly gotten up long enough to clean up. The battered nanite housing that probably held what was left of his Iron Man suit lay on the table beside him. His facial fuzz was neatened, and he wore clean clothes, a simple dark tunic and trousers. It was typical Wakandan men’s wear, and I figured Shuri had had it sent over; it suited him, though it didn’t make him look any less pale or thin. He wasn’t fiddling with his IV or everything in sight, and he wasn’t even complaining…much. That was, if I had to guess, partly due to the tray on the table, that held the disordered evidences of a meal.

I told them I couldn’t stay; I had to round up the team and talk to them about Tate’s proposal. I explained the idea of the remotely recorded interview, and that only Steve and Nat had agreed so far, but that I wanted the rest of the team to have the option if they wanted. “Well?” Tony said. “Haul ‘em in here. I’m game. I need them to come bring me up to speed anyway. From the sound of it, everything fell apart the instant I left, can’t believe I have to come clean up after them, and they’re all avoiding me, haven’t seen one all morning, maybe they thought hunger was contagious…” His mock-grumbles were unspeakably sweet to hear. 

“Well, if you feel up to it, I’ll call them and ask to meet here,” I replied. “They can catch you up on their end of things, and then I can adjourn with whoever wants to participate in the video—” 

I stopped at the frown on Tony’s face. “You don’t…want to…be in it, do you?” Pepper asked him.

He flashed a brave effort at his famous media smile. It was easy to distinguish from a real one, because it didn’t go much higher than his nose, but this time it barely curled his dry lips, and that almost broke me right then and there. “Sure, why not? Cameras have caught me looking and acting a lot worse. What better way to say ‘baby I’m back’ to the whole damn planet?”

Well, considering who we were talking about, I supposed I couldn’t think of any better way, or at least, any more appropriate way. I accessed my contact list and called each, fighting back a pang every time I had to skip a name on the list. To keep anybody from suffering a similar freakout to mine, I immediately made it clear that nothing was wrong and Tony wanted them to meet here. Turned out, all of them had made a conscious decision not to come to the room, to let him rest. “Excuse me?” he yelped as soon as he figured out that kimoyo beads worked like a phone on speaker. “I have rested. I am rest-full. Get your hero asses in here and let’s rock and roll!”

While we waited for them, I fended off Tony’s efforts to swipe my bracelet. Knowing him, he’d try to disassemble the beads and figure out how they worked. “Get your own, you mooch,” I told him and snatched my arm back. “Petition the princess regnant.”

The Avengers assembled, old friends and new ones. Tony almost yelled when Rhodey introduced Carol. “This is the one you were pining over when we first met!”

“I thought she was _dead_ , Tones!” Rhodey argued.

“No, not when we first-first met. She was not yet dead, and you were definitely pining!” Tony nodded emphatically. “He was pining,” he confirmed to Carol, who was clearly using all her alien power to keep from giggling out loud.

With my cat-herding hat firmly on, I called the crowd to order and explained the game plan. I wanted to video a brief press statement, and a few words from whoever wanted to be on screen, to post on the team social media; then spend a few minutes making the team interview film for Marcus. Then I’d turn my Starkphone camera off as Tony demanded time to compare notes and start putting together a plan to attack the problem of the Snap and the associated messes. As I’d anticipated, Clint opted out, as did Bruce; but Thor agreed, and even tried to coax Loki to take part. While they bickered, I polled the others. Carol and Rocket declined, but Rhodey was all in. “Nebula,” I said, “since you and Tony arrived together, would you like to say hello, at least, to the people watching?”

“I appear—odd, to human eyes,” she said awkwardly. “It might not be wise.”

“I think it’d be good, if you want to,” Rhodey piped up. “People know, intellectually, that Thor and Loki are not humans, but they look just like us, so it—kind of doesn’t register? To see somebody who does look somewhat different, who’s here to help, could really be reassuring.”

“Up to you, Smurfette,” Tony added. “Platypus is right though. Your air of inflexibility could inspire confidence, make the populace feel safer. Long as you don’t slit anybody’s throat, we’re golden. Besides, a pretty face always boosts ratings.”

“You think my face is pretty?” She sounded like she couldn’t decide whether she was flattered or insulted. Finally she gave a jerky shrug. “Fine.”

I started to record. I told the public the Avengers and their allies were continuing to do everything they could to support them, then videoed Steve, Nat and Rhodey expressing their support and determination. Bruce and Clint hovered in the background and waved when I panned past them; it was a good way to show the whole original team was on the job, even if they didn’t feel up to talking right now. “We’ve gotten some news the past couple of days we want to share,” I said to the camera then, updated them on the discovery of Asgard’s survivors, and turned the lens on Thor and an again-grumpy Loki.

With his old good nature starting to reassert itself, Thor hailed the people of Earth, sent salutations, and pledged his arm to protect them. Then he elbowed his brother, who finally groaned, “Fine, fine. Greetings, earthlings! I have no desire to conquer your planet. Never did, truly, but I have learned the hardest of ways that a crown and throne do not suit me. A space for our people to shelter is all I seek from you now.”

I flipped the phone to explain that last bit, then went on, “Our other piece of news is about the team from Earth that left in pursuit of Thanos. They rendezvoused with another team and faced him together. Most of them were…lost to the Snap, but two survived, and they arrived on Earth yesterday.”

I introduced Nebula as a survivor of the off-world unit. “The leader of our crew was human, born on Earth,” she said with a fierce glare into the lens, once I showed her where to look. “I greet you in his name. I would swear vengeance for him and you, but I am told Thanos is already slain, so I have only my hand in assistance to offer.”

“And we really appreciate it,” Steve said in his most earnest Captain America voice. She blinked, as if she had never been praised before, and I wondered if that was a place in which she and Tony had connected during their weeks alone and lost.

Knowing Tony’s penchant for drama, I had saved his grand sort-of-entrance, so he could have time to maneuver himself out of bed and into a chair. I gestured for Nebula to step aside, to reveal him looking as much on top of things as he could. “Hey, Earth! Did you miss me?”

From a corner, Nat made a noise that was half chuckle and half sob. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gorignak was a rock monster from the classic cult movie Galaxy Quest; Tony once again exhibits his geek cred by comparing Korg to that guy. lol
> 
> When Tony greeted the camera, his words made Nat think back to his arrival in Avengers 1, hence her slightly emotional reaction.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers' interview is followed by a team meeting. Many feels appear, and pieces of the puzzle start to come together.

After Tony’s big reveal, I stopped recording long enough to drag in a couple of chairs for the team members appearing in the interview, to let the folks who weren’t step out, and to start up a new video file for my ease of handling. I was going to hold the phone and ask a few questions from behind, but Tony wasn’t having that. “In the frame, cornbread, in the frame,” he said with impatient come-here gestures. I sighed and adjusted the camera settings so I could turn it off from my kimoyo beads, then propped it on a table by its popstand and sat with them.

It felt so strange, sliding back into interviewer mode, and I was thankful I had only pledged a brief clip to Marcus. Within moments, though, it all came back to me, the way people say riding a bike does (I never learned to ride a bike, I wouldn’t know.) in fact I had to rein my old journalist’s instincts in on a couple of occasions, and remind that ambitious cat lurking in my past self that I wasn’t here to score points on a reluctant subject, but to be honest and reassuring. What I ended up doing, rather than asking specific or pointed questions, was serving up setups for my friends-slash-interviewees to take off from. 

While Nat and Rhodey talked about the respective tasks they had stepped up to, Tony listened with unusual quiet after his initially boisterous greeting to the planet. Pepper was perched on the chair arm beside him, and he murmured to her on occasion and rested his head against her side while she petted his hair. It was hard not to fall into full-on sister mode, run everybody out and order him to bed. He wanted this, though, and as much as I loved him for always respecting my wishes, I had to remind myself to give him the same respect. Besides, there was a corner of me that still resented all the shit as the media had given him in the past, and almost wanted them to see him this way, wanted them to see how much he was willing to give for them.

A couple of times, Tony did chime in with a comment, but with minimal snark. Mostly, he just looked at whoever was talking, with an odd expression like he was seeing them for the first time. I got an increasing sense that, as Pepper had said yesterday about his return, he had hoarded his energy, but his tank was starting to run dry. 

His engine started to cough, figuratively speaking, when I turned to Steve to invite him to talk. He said a little about visiting people who had lost loved ones to the Snap; he was trying to be vague, since we were still keeping the location of the loss to Thanos under wraps as much as possible. Then Steve stopped mid-thought, and turned to Tony. “I agreed to do this because of you,” he said. Tony looked baffled. “I told Chris, at first I didn’t feel like I owed anybody my thoughts on this whole—mess, that nobody really would want to hear what one guy in a uniform felt. But then, I thought about you. We thought you were dead, y’know, and I remembered how you shared something you thought made you look weak, because you thought it might help other people be strong. I remembered that, and I decided if knowing I was hurting, we were hurting, made people feel like they weren’t so alone, maybe it was worth it. I knew if you were here, it’s what you would do.”

Tony bit his lip. “I’m nobody’s role model, Cap,” he returned, almost inaudibly, and turned his head toward Pepper with a little shake, like a kid wanting to hide his face from a scolding.

How such a small gentle truth could so overwhelm my indomitable friend, I didn’t know, but sister-mode was about to overwhelm _me_. Pepper’s eyes met mine, and the concern in them pushed me over the edge. I laid my hand on Tony’s arm. “You’ll forgive us, I hope, if we beg to differ,” I said to him with a smile, then faced my camera, took over and gave a quick closing to the session. A couple of taps on my kimoyo beads turned the recording off, and I announced, “And—cut.” 

The room itself felt like it exhaled in relief, and so did every soul in it. Pepper turned toward Tony and pulled him into her arms. “Sorry,” he mumbled as the rest of the team rejoined us. “Thought I could keep my shit together longer. Taking cues from me isn’t exactly safe, though, Steve. Parker did, and look where it fuckin’ got him…” Haltingly, he started to recount how he had gone after Thanos’ ‘children’ to rescue Strange and the Time Stone, how he had sent Peter back to Earth, and how Peter had snuck back onto the ship after Tony and Strange took it over. As I had surmised, he admitted he had insisted they take the warlord on, not on our world, but on his. They had crashed the ship on Titan, and met Rocket’s friends the Guardians, also gunning for Thanos. “Strange tapped his Time-Turner and flipped through a few million possible scenarios. It…didn’t look good. Only one where we won, he said. Kinda thinking we missed that exit, now. Thanos showed up, we were doing pretty well kicking his ass, then…”

Unexpectedly, Rhodey interrupted him. “Don’t, Tones. You don’t have to go there. We know what happened.”

Tony lifted his head—it seemed to take such effort, he looked so frail and gaunt I was just thankful Pep was beside him and his friends were around him. “Honeybear, you may have been offered the fleshpots of elected office, but unless your brain sprouted another lobe, you still can’t read my mind.”

“Don’t have to,” Rhodey retorted in the tone he always took with Tony, slightly exasperated but mostly loving, and nodded toward Nebula. “Your new friend’s prosthetic eye and neuro-synaptic drive recorded the whole melee. She, uh, showed us, last night.”

It must have been the emotions running so high, that made me have to fight back an inappropriate giggle at the utterly gobsmacked way Tony’s mouth fell open. “Smurfette! I’m wounded. I thought we had a connection. Why didn’t you—you could’ve shown me, or fuck, told me you had!”

“I could not,” she fired back, her fists clenched. “You were already killing yourself over them, especially the boy, your son. All my showing you would have accomplished was to hasten the process, and I…” She faltered, and then built up another head of steam. “You were kinder to me in twenty-two days than anyone has been in my entire life, Stark. I would not bear that responsibility on my conscience.”

Her blunt words silenced every mouth; I could barely even hear people breathing. Carol shuffled her feet as if uncomfortable. Even Tony was speechless, for a moment anyway, before the fire in his eyes dimmed and he dropped his head again. “Strange coughed up his stone for me,” he muttered. “Cut a deal, to save my life. Now, granted, Barney only agreed not to kill me outright, me dying on my own time wasn’t covered in the contract. That was a near thing, till blue meanie here stitched me up. But, yeah, the Tine Stone getting where it wasn’t meant to be, that was on me—”

“No, sir,” Steve snapped, cutting him off, and shifted on the stool where he perched, to face him. “Iron Man. Look at me. I’m gonna need you to focus.” This was Steve’s team leader voice, the one I had only heard monitoring comms until the awful day I joined the Avengers on the field of a losing battle. The sharpness of it demanded attention, and got it, even as Tony visibly bristled. Despite his obvious exhaustion, he started to argue, but Steve was already halfway to Brooklyn and was not having it. “I got no notion why Strange made that bargain—we knew about it already too, from Thanos himself of all fuckin’ people. But that was his decision, pal. In no way was it your fault. So, knock that shit off.”

Tony caught his breath, and his mouth quivered a little, but his eyes met Steve’s squarely. “When everybody started to…he seemed to think this was that winning spin? If so, his roulette wheel was off its center in a big way.”

“Or,” Clint put in, surprising us all—he’d been so quiet the whole time; really, since he had returned to Wakanda, he had barely talked. “he knew the fix was in. He knew what he was betting on.”

Nat’s eyebrow flew up, and then her eyes narrowed. “What did he say, Tony? Exactly?”

“I—fuck, I don’t know, Itsy Bitsy. I was kind of busy dying, and then not, and then—I wasn’t exactly on record mode!” Pepper tightened her embrace around him and shushed him when he slumped back against her.

“I was,” Nebula said quietly. “I was not near the wizard at that moment, but I may have captured his last words.”

I stood up. “Okay, let’s step outside and you can check.”

“Uh-uh,” Tony shook his head vehemently, before his eyes bugged out as if he wished he hadn’t. He looked woozy for a second, then flipped his hand downward in Nebula's direction. “Screen that thing right here, Indigo Girl. I—I can take it.”

“We know you _can_ , Tony, but it isn’t necessary,” Thor began, but stopped when he got an answering glare that made Loki smother a grin despite the circumstance. I sat down, Nebula blinked and fiddled briefly around her eye, then fixed her gaze on a spot on the floor, and suddenly a holo-image appeared there, fuzzy, but definitely Stephen Strange.

_“We’re in the endgame now_ ,” he said as if in reply to another voice. A moment later, looking intently at something we could not see, he said, “ _Tony…there was no other way_.” The image flickered out, or at first I thought it did, until I realized in horror we were actually seeing the sorcerer start to fall to ash, as we had seen so many, as I had seen Bucky. I tore my eyes away, and was only a little comforted to see everybody else just as shaken.

Nat, bless her, recovered first. “Definitely sounds like he thought what he did bumped us onto that one timeline to victory. But how?”

Silence fell again, but this time every eye turned toward one person. Tony looked around at us, almost wildly now. “No. No, we’re not going there. It’s bad enough if that purple son of a bitch got his shot at us because Strange had an attack of scruples over letting me die. But thinking somehow _I’m_ essential to fixing this mess? No. I shall not seek nor will I accept the nomination—”

“Well, not you alone, goober, obviously,” I said with a roll of my eyes. “But, you know, annoying you sort of unites the rest of the team. Myself included, if I’m totally honest." Closer to the floor, Rocket let out his little cough-laugh again; I wondered if his crew had had their heart too, the target of good-natured teasing who was the glue that held the group together. “If Stephen saw something that the Avengers had to do, to make things right, then you had to be a part of it. And you said last night, you weren’t going to give up, and we’d pick up and go together.”

Tony looked torn between fear and hope, till Bruce, who isn’t known for being the one to lighten the atmosphere, strolled across the room and rapped lightly with his knuckles on top of Tony’s head. “It’s in here,” he said with a grin. “I keep saying, your brain’s more a superpower than every Iron Man suit combined. Something’s rattling around in your brain pan. Don’t know what, yet, but something we need to fix this.” Words from years ago came to my mind yet again: _I shouldn’t be alive unless it was for a reason_. I had to wonder, was Tony saved to play the long game; to be the person the earth, hell the universe, needed right here and right now? As if he could hear my thoughts, Bruce added, “You used to tell me, the gamma rays that made Hulk should have killed me, and there was a reason they didn’t. Maybe there’s a reason you’re here too, buddy.”

Pepper fairly beamed up at Bruce, then down at Tony, whose eyes said he wanted to believe his friend’s words. “I could’ve done more,” he muttered. “Could’ve worked the flaws out of the Ultron plan, or started over, done an end run around the Accords but kept the spirit. Feel like I did my best work after the fact. Avenger, not Pre-venger…”

“Mud in the fire, shellhead,” Clint shook his head. “No point living in the past. We got a future to work on.” I gave him a grateful smile and a little thumbs-up; he seemed better just now than he had been in weeks.

“And that Avenger thing,” Carol offered, “I may be partly to blame for that. It was my call sign, and I was the first ‘hero’ Fury worked with, so I, ah, think maybe he named you guys’ initiative after that.”

That finally got a smile out of most everybody, including Tony. “You’re great, by the way,” he told her. “We need you. You're new blood. Now, somebody tell me what the hell’s been going on earthside?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part of my brand has kind of become taking painful moments from canon and reclaiming them! This chapter, of course, is the Wordsmith verse's version of the explosive team meeting in Endgame after Tony's return from space--it has some resonances with that sequence, but in a world where the Avengers love Tony and rejoice in his safe return and where they have learned to be more open with each other, it turns out a leetle differently.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers' team meeting ends, and Chrissy lets the world know Tony is alive! The team starts to adjust to their reunion, and working to move forward. Chrissy gets together with Shuri for Extremis retesting, hopeful she can demonstrate to Tony that she is safe and capable of handling it.

I had already told Tony everything I knew, in broad strokes, but the other Avengers described the things I had not been part of. He was honestly a little ticked off that they went after Thanos without him. “I hate you all,” he grumbled. “Can’t trust any of you. Turn my back for a month, and you go have all the fun without me.”

Carol frowned, but it smoothed the next second at Rhodey’s sad small laugh that was echoed by every other voice. Tony knew we hadn’t had a damn bit of fun, and we knew he knew; but if he needed to keep up the front that had stood him in relatively good stead for so many years, to hold himself together, nobody was going to argue with him. “You wouldn’t exactly have been in any condition for it, even if you had been back,” Steve pointed out. “And you’ve been through enough right now anyway. We were so afraid we lost you, and we wouldn’t have risked losing you again. If you had been here, we would’ve needed you and Bruce back here, to engineer some kind of containment for the stones…”

“The stones you didn’t get,” Tony finished. Steve winced, but Tony shook his head. “Don’t go Catholic, Cap. Guilt complexes are not allowed. If I can’t have one, neither can anybody else, that’s how it works when you’re rich. We’ll just turn the fucking paradigm on its head. Brucie-bear and me, we have a track record for doing the slightly impossible, and with Princess Prodigy adding her Wakandan pixie dust, we can do this. We—we’ve got to do this. Whatever it takes.”

“Whatever it takes,” Bruce agreed, and heads nodded. If they believed it, that was a start, I figured. We spent hours there, with people slipping in and out as needed, talking and catching up. A lot of the talk was about the folks we had lost, with some laughter, some tears, a lot of hugs, and a quiet determination to leave no option unexplored to get our loved ones back. At some point, a courier from the complex kitchens appeared with Tony’s lunch. Bodies started to move for the door, but the guy shook his head and hustled off, to return in a flash lugging a huge pot and leading a brace of his co-workers with the needed accompaniments. The spicy-sweet smell of peanut and veggie stew filled the air, and sharing a meal, just as it did when I whacked out a few batches of biscuits and the works back home, seemed to settle everybody.

It was late afternoon, mid-morning in New York, before people started to filter out of Tony’s room and back to their own business. I wasn’t on a strict deadline, but I wanted to get our website updated with the new video and shoot announcements out on our social media, just before I sent Marcus the footage for his piece. It wasn’t until I sat down and synced my phone with my tablet that I discovered I hadn’t set the remote control function properly. My heart sank, fearful nothing had recorded. I couldn’t say our work was for nothing, because a lot of things got said that needed to be, but I was still going to be madder than a wet hen.

A minute’s calm investigation, though, revealed the situation was quite the reverse—the camera had never stopped recorded. Everything, Tony’s stress-out, Nebula’s projection, and the Avengers’ wholehearted vow, had been caught in bits and bytes. It would take a little editing, I reflected, but I could ask— _No, you dumbass, you can’t ask Peter to help you. Peter’s gone, remember? Thanos took him too._

There was no villain to target anymore, nobody to take my anger out on. As tears for Peter, and Bucky, and all those lost, got the better of me, I swore before God to the words Tony had spoken. _Whatever it takes._

For the moment, of course, what it took was me being my wordsmith self. I dove into my work, knowing what needed to be done, and hoping the heft of it would soothe my grief again, like a weighted blanket around my soul. I cleaned up the short file I had shot for AvengersOnline; it came out neat and almost upload-ready, with only a bit of added effort. Once I scanned the actual interview footage, it looked pretty good too, cut off at its original intended end point. For a little extra softness, so to speak, I created a couple of short clips from later in the video, with the audio silenced: everyone eating and chatting; some tighter shots of people hugging that made the emotionality plain; one glorious few seconds of Tony talking, his hands going a mile a minute and everyone’s attention focused on him. The email I attached the files to gave nothing away; it was just a few pleasantries, a thank you to Marcus for his cooperation, and general ID of each file. That went into my draft folder, until the reveal was ready to post. With a deep breath, I put up the announcement on our web site, with an alert to watch for CBS' coverage, and wrote quick posts for our various accounts with links. I gave our followers a few minutes to find it and start to shriek, then shot the interview to Tate, and started to organize what came next.

What came next for Tony was sleep, and a lot of it. He barely budged from his bed the whole day following, recharging from his ordeal, only up long enough to eat, drink, and go to the bathroom. The other Avengers and the new arrivals had their own affairs to pursue, but every time I popped into Tony’s room, a different person or small group was watching over him as he slept, spelling Pepper. Clint and Rocket came together; so did Carol and Goose, who was curled up on Tony’s stomach purring without a care in the world. “I take it you do know she’s not a cat,” I said with a wink. Carol smothered a laugh and proceeded to tell me how she had come to be a flerkin-mom in absentia, and, better yet, how Fury of all people had become a flerkin-dad. From her comment about the Avengers, I had already guessed she and Nick went back a lot farther than anybody knew, and she was as dead set on trying everything possible to get the people snapped back as anybody, mostly for him. She also knew Phil, though, and was delighted to hear he was safe. I promised to connect them the next time she came back to earth.

The next day, Tony was awake and begging for coffee at a fairly reasonable hour. When he got it, he took one swig and declared he wanted to sign a personal trade agreement with Wakanda. “Me and them. screw the US government—oh wait, Rhodey’s still in tight with Ellis, have to take that into account, well, I’ll come up with something, but I need a regular supply of this magnificent joy juice. Why didn’t they put this in that IV? I’d’ve been running laps yesterday instead of laying on my ass.” He took another slurp and haughtily ignored Pepper and me hanging onto each other to stay upright while we laughed ourselves silly in relief.

I couldn’t credit the coffee alone, but Tony got his strength back pretty quickly. Over the next few days, I met him and Pepper in corridors inside buildings or on pathways outside. rather, I met him hauling her along like an overexcited puppy on a too-short leash. Admittedly, more often than not it was the smell of coffee leading him to the nearest dining area, but every bit of tech or art along the way made him pause to examine it. I had always known Wakanda would enchant him, and grieved for weeks thinking I would never get the chance to see it, but now seeing it lifted my heart for really the first time since the snap.

Every Avenger’s heart seemed lifted, in fact. Thor and Loki put their heads together with Rhodey to find a place their people could settle. Clint and Nat explored every inch of the Golden City, and Bruce all but took up residence in one of Shuri’s labs, continuing his work on a synthetic version of the Wakandan heart-shaped herb. For her own part, the princess was still so tied up with running her country that she had little time to work in her lab, but she finally got my retesting done. I was eager to know how the Snap might have affected my tiny freeloaders, and see whether that impacted my ability to wrangle them. Pepper had been certain that seeing me work with Extremis under my control would ease Tony’s worries, and I hoped she was right, but I was going to be as close to absolute certainty about my status as possible before I tried to show off for him.

Since Bruce worked on my case from the start, she asked him to lend a hand and his big brain, and in the process, he got the whole story of what had happened with me while he and Big Green were off playing gladiator. He was particularly interested in how I ‘talked’ to Extremis, and I explained how I felt I had struck a balance within myself that helped me control it better.

While we talked and Shuri finished running her samples, Nebula came in and asked to borrow a tool she needed to adjust a setting in her prosthetic arm. She seemed almost shy, but Shuri welcomed her and waved her to a workstation to use, and she listened while Bruce and I bounced ideas off each other—he said he was trying to get to a place of balance too, hoping maybe he could coax Hulk to work with him. “Balance,” Nebula said. “Thanos always laid the blame for his actions on the need for balance in the universe.”

“It definitely has its place,” I replied. “But striving for balance within yourself is one thing. Deciding you know best what constitutes balance for the entire universe? That’s a whole ‘nother bag of squid.”

Nebula cocked her head. “I do not know what a bag of squid is, but it sounds revolting.”

“It is,” Bruce said. “Which is precisely what you meant, isn’t it, Chrissy? Every entity has the right to choose their own path.”

“Right.” I tried to stay calm, but Shuri was _hmm_ ’ing over her readouts, and I tried not to get tense. “No matter whether it’s out of arrogance, like him, or even out of love, you can’t make decisions for other people.” I prayed that my efforts to calm Tony’s guilt by proving I was fine with Extremis didn’t fall into that category.

Thankfully, I guess, Shuri’s measurements showed no change that amounted to anything in Extremis, so I settled down, hoped it did the same, and made plans to put on a little demonstration for Tony. For his part, his enthusiasm about Wakanda only multipled as he grew strong enough to range farther in the complex and for longer. Shuri’s lab nearly made him swoon, naturally. I accompanied him as much as I could, though he had an escort and guide assigned to him, and I introduced him to everybody I knew. Invariably, their greetings were some version of “oh, you’re Christine’s brother.” The first couple of times, he looked startled, and stumbled over an attempt to explain, glaring at me—although why, I didn’t know what to do, and I honestly didn’t know half of Wakanda knew that by now! After a while, he stopped arguing, and just grinned and let it slide. I tried to apologize, but he laughed and poked me and wanted to know how to pronounce _usisi_ properly. 

“You’re running around with the Wakandan Amazons, in gear that looks like an Iron Maiden suit—ha, sorry, just, in my head, someplace in the multiverse, there’s probably a female me, and she is probably Iron Maiden, because how could any me pass that name up? But yeah, why wouldn’t everybody assume you said I was your bro and meant it? Other than the obvious issue of coloration, and hey, remember I was kind of blond as a kid, you’ve seen the old pictures, so, not entirely implausible. So, sis, speaking of your action suit, let’s see some hot action, pardon the pun.”


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy demonstrates her new mastery of Extremis for Tony, and others.

The days after the announcement of Tony’s return, I was kept hopping, dealing with the world’s response, which, to be perfectly blunt, could be best described as a planet-wide flipping the fuck out, in a good way. The morning that I put everything on hold and suited up, and a grinning Steve finally drove Tony and me out to the Dora Milaje training ground, I was half hopeful and half a wreck. The warriors crowded around, and Tony started glad-handing and greeting like he was at some high-dollar function—for a hot minute, until Okoye strode over. “We take great pride in our _Lomlilo_ ,” she told him. “Her strength and courage are a match for any. It is a privilege to finally meet the one who has been such an inspiration to her.”

Tony was probably trying to put together a good line, but that knocked him right off his stride and out of his shell. “Um, well, you know how they say you’re known by the company you keep? Me, in her company, I mean, not the other way around, because more often than not I’m not fit company for anybody to keep and I have no clue why people stay around—”

“Tony?” I sighed. “Hush.” While we towed him to the sideline and I flipped an empty smokepot for him to sit on, I had to explain my nickname and how I got it. “The team uses it sometimes, too, but just when…called to arms, I guess you could say? It’s like—”

“A call name,” Tony said. “A hero’s call name.” He was looking up from his improvised seat at me, then turned his head away. “You never wanted to be a hero.”

“No, but having a separate name to attach to those times is kind of nice, kind of useful. It’s not like having another personality, I’m still who I am, but it helps me shift my brain into that mindset.”

“Like Iron Man, or Captain America,” Steve said with a nod of comprehension, from his crouch beside Tony. “Not different people, but different roles. It’s good to be able to call those out, tell ‘em apart. Smart move, Fireblade.”

I grinned, tossed them both a salute and ran to find Aneka, who knew my whole backstory. “Come spar with me?” I begged. “I’m so nervous, I don’t mean go easy, just—I have to show Tony this is all okay, so he’ll stop fretting.”

“With pleasure!” She did not go easy on me, at all, whipping out every trick that her spear held: a thrust with the sharp vibranium head, followed by a cross-block with the shaft. At first I just worked with my _mambele_ alone, but when she spun the spear to launch an electrical discharge with the blunt end, I stepped back as if to down my blade and catch a breath, but instead lifted its tip skyward. _All right, you microscopic shits_ , I thought, _let’s prove ourselves. Let’s put Tony’s mind at ease._

Extremis rippled up the blade’s sides and edges, and with a whoop I plunged back into the fray. Aneka yelped, then let out a defiant laugh and came at me. In one turn, I caught a glimpse of Steve grinning like a goat eating briars, and Tony’s mouth hanging agape. I held my focus, though, until Aneka threw up a hand. “Enough!” She laughed at me blowing on my blade to cue Extremis out, and we embraced. “How was that?” she murmured.

“Perfect,” I panted. “ _Enkosi, usisi.”_

“It is I who should thank you. I feel—less bereft, when I can remind myself I am yet a warrior.” With another hug and a kiss, she trotted off and I headed for the sideline. Tony still looked like the proverbial mule hit between the eyes with a two by four, and I relished hearing whatever words he could summon up. As I drew nearer to them, though, I spied another familiar form coming toward us at an angle, carrying a spear too, though not the Dora’s style.

“Brunhilde! Hi. You’ve been going a few rounds with my battle-sisters?”

“I have.” She looked much brighter than the last time we spoke; I suspected the time with the Dora was doing her a lot of good. “Stark,” she greeted Tony. “It is good to see you looking less like you crawled out of Helheim.”

“Mmph,” Tony sniffed. “Just the name sounds below my personal standards. Zero of ten, would not book again, shitty mattresses and shittier wifi.” He snorted at her done look and turned to me. “I have never called you a windbag, but if you have enough air to blow out that oversized birthday candle of yours, well, maybe?”

I gave him a playful smack. “Shall we spar, Christine?” Brunhilde asked. 

Tony looked alarmed, and even Steve blinked. I ignored them both. “Let’s dance!” I agreed, knowing she was going to clean my clock. My new opponent was Asgardian, sure, but she was still mortal, I supposed—she had spoken about her fellow Valkyries being killed—and I definitely did not want to hurt her. I figured I’d just make sure she didn’t hurt me by accident, and get in some extra practice.

I knew I was in over my head from the first swing. Even with Extremis lighting my blade up, she was faster and more skillful at every move, her strength outmatching my minimal enhancement. Her face was alight with the joy of a challenge, though, so I felt I was doing as well as I could. At least the skirmish didn’t end immediately with me on my face in the dirt. In fact, we danced for several minutes, until one double-back swing of her ornate spear tore my weapon from my hand and sent it flying. 

For an instant I froze in terror, my mind flung backward to the battle with Thanos, my sword out of reach, defenseless against him. But I wasn’t defenseless, not now. The real weapon was inside me. As we say in the South, it was time to let the big dog eat. 

I took a step back, as if preparing to lunge and try to grab my hilt. She swung at me again rather than thrusting, probably trying to just knock me down and then call the bout. I drew out the fiery energy, but instead of letting it take the most natural ball shape, I pulled it like taffy with both hands while visualizing it in a long rod-like form. Yes, it would have been better if I had tried that sometime before I was facing off against a minor deity, but you do what you’ve got to do. I jumped back another step and jammed one end of the bar into the ground, just about the same instant the shaft of the spear struck it with a resounding clunk. 

The recoil pushed me back and off the ground. Well, I thought that was the cause, until I felt myself actually halt for a second, with my feet several inches above earth. I had just enough time to realize the fire energy still pouring from my hands was holding me up, before it sputtered out and I landed on my butt with a thump.

“Hold!” Brunhilde cried. “I need to see this!” With a huge grin, she set her weapon aside and examined my impromptu block, then fired questions at me about Extremis’ capabilities while she hauled me to my feet and dusted my rump off. A cheer went up from the other end of the training grounds, where no doubt the Dora were watching; but another came from much closer, and sounded like a lot more voices than just Steve and Tony. Glancing around, I was startled to see nearly all my Avenger friends and associates gathered on the edge of the space. Thor whooped, while beside him Loki was watching with narrowed eyes but a pleased expression. Pepper was wrapped around Tony, his eyes still big but the familiar crease of thought between them now. Wildest of all, Nat sat several feet above the tumult perched on Hulk’s shoulder. Every face looked happy and proud. Nobody’s frown said _why couldn’t you have done this THEN_ , no tone was accusatory, and something in me eased.

I dragged Brunhilde’s attention from my merrily crackling manifestation, then compressed it into nonexistence, and we trotted over to greet our unexpected audience. “I know we haven’t been going at it long enough for all y’all to drive out here?” I said while hugging Pepper.

“I called Thor,” Steve said. “Tony said Brunhilde had had some…issues.”

Tony shrugged. “When you’ve tried to drown yourself in a bottle, you know the signs. Thought Point Break might appreciate seeing her having fun. Instead of riding his new piledriver over here, Reindeer Games decided to come along and apparate half the capital city with him.”

“Good thing, too,” Nat added as a large green hand deposited her gently on the ground. “It’s nice to see you handling your high voltage so well, Chris.”

My sparring partner was being commended and backslapped by Thor and his pals, but Korg turned toward me at Nat’s words. “That looked more like high burn point than high voltage,” he put in. Even he looked small, or at least smallish, beside the Hulk, who was looking down with an unusually focused expression. “Thor’s electric, you know, but this one’s combustion. Amazing, though, madam! I had no idea a publicist hid such battle skills. You could have held your own in the arenas of Sakaar, for a little while anyway.”

“Oh no. Let’s not invoke that hellhole, you pile of rocks.” I blinked, and glanced around reflexively. The Hulk was standing right here, so where was Bruce’s voice coming from? “Give her fifteen minutes with the Grandmaster, though, and she’d have him turning the Grand Arena into a fundraiser for intergalactic orphans.”

I finally tracked the source of the voice—up. “Bruce?” I squinted up at the green face above me. 

Instead of the usual childlike grin it bore when Hulk was relaxed and content, the head cocked and one eyebrow rose in a familiar Banner expression. “Uh, yeah, unless you mistook me for this Marxist over here.” He poked Korg, to a guffaw from the big alien. “I didn’t want to say anything until I was pretty sure I could control it, but I took a page from your book, kind of, Chrissy. I’ve been trying to control Hulk all this time, but I decided to try getting in contact with him, talking things out, the way you said you talk to Extremis. It—seems to be working. Anyway, I was practicing when Steve called Thor, and Loki rounded everybody up to come over here, so I didn’t have time to try to shift back.”

“And moving you in your extended form put a considerable strain on my _seidr_ , I’ll have you know.” Loki turned to join the conversation. His words were snippy, but a hint of an uncommon smile danced at the edge of his mouth.

“Yeah, right,” Bruce snorted and smacked Loki on the back. “You talk a good game, but I know better. I’m remembering more all the time, things that big green’s been showing me. You don’t hate me or anybody as much as you’d like them to think. ‘We have a Hulk’?”

“Bah. Words, nothing more,” Loki scoffed.

“Guess I’ll find it in my heart not to sue you for plagiarism then, Rock of Ages,” Tony said from beside me. He and Loki exchanged looks that spoke more words I wasn’t privy to. Loki tossed his head and pretended to storm off, a look that his efforts not to laugh pretty much ruined. 

After a little while, people began to disperse and go their ways, or get magically transported back to the city, though Loki refused to strain himself by Hulk-moving again. Bruce just put Nat on his shoulder, flipped Loki a huge green bird, and trotted off after getting directions. Tony pulled me aside, and I tensed despite myself. “I saw what you did wrong there,” he said. “When you went airborne? It’s exactly what I was doing when I started building the Mark II suit. I was fighting it. You have to go with the flow. Happy to give you a few pointers, if you’re up for that.”

“Um…You would? Honestly, I—that wasn’t on purpose, though for a hot minute it was awesome, and yes, I’d like that. I’d love it, if you’re okay with it. If, you know, it doesn’t upset you or scare you or whatever?”

Tony’s shoulders shook with laughter and he pulled me into a hug. “None of the above,” he chuckled. “Still not happy you got stuck with this bullshit, or that you’ve had to work so damn hard on it, but you’ve got this tiger by the tail.”

“Practicing makes it better, helps me manage it day to day,” I nodded. “Bucky wanted me to be able to handle it without a prop. If, heaven forbid, I ever have to use Extremis in a fight again, I intend to be better than the last time.”

“You won’t have to if I can help it,” Tony whispered fiercely in my ear. Backing up, he said in a more normal tone, “Proud of you, cornbread. Bumble will be too, when we get him back. If we can get you flying, he’ll shit a Brooklyn brick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce's rapprochement with the Hulk is going to go a little differently from canon. As if you are surprised by that. This is me, after all. LOL


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers and their new allies take their leave of Wakanda, return to New York, and dive into working to help a shaken world.

I did not get much chance for flight training during the rest of the Avengers’ collective team holiday in Wakanda. The world was still freaking out, and questions and requests for interviews and wild pleas and demands from one end of the behavioral spectrum to the other poured in. The other Avengers were still busy as bees. With the UN’s blessing, several ships of Asgardian refugees landed in Wakanda long enough for an exuberant reunion with their presumed-dead prince—well, king, now, and that made me hurt for Thor, and wish T’Challa were here to empathize and help him. He seemed happy, having his brother back, and his friends and his people, but there was still a shadow there. At times, he got a faraway look, and I would have bet I knew its source.

Usually, he shook it off quickly by surrounding himself with shouting, boisterous drinking buddies. Sif, the companion he had been so excited to hear was alive, proved to be a statuesque warrior who loved the Dora (and Brunhilde, though that looked to me like a whole other flavor of love, and more power to ‘em). For her part, Brunhilde seemed happy enough that she wasn’t drinking a lot. That thrilled Bruce, who was dividing his time between Shuri’s labs and his space-traveling posse, and getting better all the time at controlling his shift.

Rocket seemed to be everywhere at once. He partied with the Asgardians a lot, but he also spent a good bit of time with Clint. I knew they had hit it off in the lab, but didn’t find out why exactly until I got nosy and asked Nat one day, and she explained that Groot, the tree-being who had fought alongside us and been snapped, was basically Rocket’s adopted child. It all made sense then: grieving dads supporting each other. I found Tony with them both, one day out at Bucky’s farm, and that made sense too; family, and apparently parenting, is about more than blood, after all.

Tony learned his way around quickly, and I started finding him in Shuri’s labs, picking up a little Wakandan and toying with some ideas. Pepper’s phone was often beside him, which puzzled me on the first couple of sightings, until the day I happened by and heard JARVIS’ voice coming out of the speaker. As I had always known would happen, Tony thought the world of Shuri, and she, in her sassy way, seemed to get pretty fond of him.

When the UN approved the Asgardian refugees’ move to southern Norway, Thor and Loki packed their friends and subjects and headed off with promises to stay in touch and be ready if needed. Rocket decided to go to New York with the Avengers, so he could continue working on tech with Tony and Bruce (I couldn’t wait to introduce him and Harley). Nebula stayed on too, mostly, she insisted, to help with Nat’s baby spiders, but I suspected she didn’t want to be parted from her only remaining crewmate too.

The Avengers lingered a little longer; maybe to give Tony more time to regain his strength and brace himself to return to the world; maybe to brace themselves, to get a few more breaths before this grace period ended. The end for us came when Happy called to tell Pepper that Harley had pulled Ned in to work with him and the green energy division of SI—something about souping up an Israeli science team’s experimental system for generating electricity. How they blew holes in two walls on the R&D floor with a potato, I didn’t know and didn’t dare ask. No one was injured, but the repair crews seemed hesitant to take orders from the head of security and two interns (apparently Harley had made an executive decision to put Ned on the roster, which would last until the CEO got back, I was sure). Pepper sighed, went looking for Ramonda to let her know she and Tony needed to get home, and asked me to track Tony down. 

As it turned out, we ended up in the same place, the tribal council chamber of the Citadel, where a meeting had just broken up and Tony was buttonholing Shuri about getting him some kimoyo beads. She was trying to explain to him they weren’t compatible with other systems, _no, not even StarkTech, as highly as you may think of it,_ when Pepper and I converged. Pep explained the situation to an amused queen mother, who understood and gave her blessing and invitation to return anytime. I agreed that I needed to get back to my paying gig too, took my leave, and returned my beads. “I’m going to do everything in my power to make things right,” Tony told Ramonda and Shuri. “I…wish I’d done more to nip this mess in the bud.”

“Your sister has told me of your inclination to take blame for things,” Shuri returned. “It’s a bit arrogant, to think it all came down to you, don’t you think? True, from what you and your companions say, this sorcerer seems to have seen you must play a role in putting things right, but the person tasked with cleaning up a mess is not to blame for making the mess.”

“See?” I nudged Tony. “I’m not the only one who gets it.”

“Christine is wise, and has great faith in you,” Shuri concurred.

“Yeah, well, she’s always been a soft touch, maybe not the best judge of character.”

“Excuse me?” I demanded. “I am a journalist. By definition, I cannot be a ‘soft touch’ by any—”

Shuri put up her hand with a laugh. “I will warn you here, before you make the mistake elsewhere, Mr. Stark: there are many Wakandans who would call you out in the streets for saying such a thing. She is very well liked here for her true heart, among other things.” Tony cocked his head and rolled his eyes toward me, looking as abashed as a Stark could. “I think,” she went on, “that you are afraid to let others trust in you, for fear you will fail them somehow. Let them make that decision for themselves, Mr. Stark.”

“You’ve always been good at the 'letting people make their own decisions' part, with me at least,” I pointed out to him. 

“Out of the mouths of baby geniuses,” Tony conceded. “Fine, fine.”

We piled into the quinjet and took our leave, with Nebula and Rocket following in the _Benatar_. We led them to the Avengers compound to leave their craft there, but the team didn’t stay. Instead, the whole group headed back to New York, partly to have everyone in one central base of operation again, and partly, they all admitted, that they just needed each other’s company. 

Tony was thrilled to see Harley again, despite the cause, and he nearly fell apart when he and Happy reunited. They went back so long, and I knew how much they meant to each other, but they tended not to show it, other than Tony giving Happy grief and Happy pretending to get in a huff about it. When Happy popped out of the tower elevator onto the common floor, Tony did his best to keep his image intact and got up off the big couch already starting a rant about—something; I think it was the wall finish for the replacement partitions in the R&D lab. That lasted all of a second and a half, until Happy let out an audible sob, moved across the room faster than any non-hero big guy should have, and snatched Tony up. “I need to make you a suit, Hogan,” Tony declared while Pepper and I exchanged grins. “You’re the only one in this fam without one.”

“Boss! What’m I wearin’ here?” Happy pretended he wasn’t sniffling, and straightened his jacket. “I got two perfectly good suits. I don’t need armor. How’m I gonna be the subtle sneaky head of security if I’m clankin’ around like some guy outta Camelot?”

Tony laughed through his own sniffles. “You don’t do subtle any better than I do, Hap.”

I plunged headlong back into my job, which at this time was bringing the team back into a world terribly changed. Celebrity chefs joined forces to cook for families in need; musicians put on fundraisers all over the world, large and small. Nat hit the bureaucracy like she was taking HYDRA lairs down again, and started putting out feelers to contact the street-level heroes. Rhodey might not have accepted the offer of the Vice-President’s post, but he had a network, expanding all the time, of contacts in DC and around the world, and he was working them mercilessly. Clint divided his time between helping the two, pushing for governmental assistance for families whose breadwinners had been lost.

At the first in-person presser we held, I made brief statements about what the ones absent were doing, and the ones present spoke for themselves. Nat put out an appeal for anyone who knew the fate of their local heroes to contact her, all privacy maintained, through AvengersOnline. Bruce made some headlines of his own, and for once without turning green, when he decided to go public with his developing rapprochement with the Hulk. Mostly, he admitted, it was to give people a small bit of good news and reassurance. “So much is going down right now, I thought it might be nice for everybody to know that I hope they don’t have to worry about the big guy breaking any parts of the city anymore.”

Tony wanted Steve to be the closer, but Steve flatly refused. It had been quite a while since we had seen those two argue, but Steve would not be moved. When Bruce finished, Steve pushed forward, patted him on the arm with a grin of approval, then gave a curt version of his typical Cap pep talk and all but fled. Tony managed to close his gaping jaw, before he launched in and did his thing, the way he had come to do it best, a blend of his old self-assurance and an openness that left those who still stereotyped him (and yes, there were still some, go figure) confounded. “I wish…we could tell you we are going to fix this by next week, next month—next year—something. If we could at least give you a time frame, a light to look for the end of this tunnel that wasn’t a bullet train coming toward us, I know that would help. I wish we could promise you that, but we can’t. What we can promise you is that we’re here, we’ll do everything we can, and we aren’t gonna give up.”

It wasn’t what people wanted to hear, but as my Buzzfeed reporter pal Jacob wrote, it was what people needed to hear. With that, we moved ahead, a little at a time. For my part, I was still a little shaky in my own kitchen for more than a sandwich; memories continued to haunt it, but the common kitchen was my safe place, and I intended to finish the job the Wakandan chefs had started, and get some more meat back on Tony’s bones. When I could get everybody around a table, for a hot minute I could almost imagine everything was okay, until somebody bit off some casual comment they were about to make, caught themselves saying or doing something that reminded us all of one of our loved friends gone. I sounded everybody out, separately or in small groups, about whether it’d be better to put an end to informal team get-togethers. They all looked at me like I had lost what was left of my mind.

We managed to get Phil to join us on a couple of occasions; one day when dinner was being planned and Rhodey was in town, he paged Carol early enough for her to swoop in and greet her old friend (and suck down volumes of white beans and cornbread that made even Steve pause). After that, Carol visited several more times, and her timing was always impeccable, hitting the Tower just around mealtime, even though sometimes all she got was pizza with whoever was home. She said that was fine with her; it was nice to have a place to land, where she could hang with people in her shoes. Once, she had a passenger. A disgruntled-looking ginger cat’s head was poking out of a backpack of sturdy Wakandan fabric. “I’m taking Goose to my family,” she explained. “She got into a hissing match with a battle rhino, and tried to eat it. The princess is just too busy to keep her out of trouble, the little shit. Goose, I mean, not Shuri, although for all I know, she might be too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Israeli experiments on generating electricity in large volume from potatoes are for real. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/a-potato-battery-can-light-up-a-room-for-over-a-month-180948260/


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The post-Snap world has its downs and ups. Science continues to fight toward a solution, until one Avenger feels uesless and snaps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it might not be the Avenger you expect...

A week or two after the team presser, Jacob contacted me with a request—Buzzfeed was getting a lot of questions about Bruce and Hulk’s newfound understanding, and he wanted to get the full story from the horse’s mouth. Bruce was hesitant to sit down with a reporter, but not as much as I would have expected, and he finally agreed. The interview was a smashing, pardon the pun, success. Even when (or maybe especially when) Bruce got a little ways off into the weeds trying to explain the science that had created Hulk, he was still the dorky Brainiac the team loved. “I don’t want any nerdy kids out there messing around with radiation trying to do what I did. You do not want to do that. I mean it,” he said. 

Personally, I was very impressed with Jacob for pulling the score off, and most of all for not losing his mind when he asked half-jokingly toward the end if Bruce would, or could, shift at will now and maintain his awareness, and then said, “When?”

Bruce shrugged. “Now? Now is good,” he said, and did, and Jacob did not wet his pants. 

Tony was so proud of his science bro. “You need your own science show. Doctor Hulk could put Bill Nye out of business. Not that I dislike Nye, he’s a sharp guy and all; but you, you could spark a whole generation. I’ll buy a TV network for it. No, better yet, we’ll stream it online, that’s what all the hip…hip kids do…” His tone totally changed, and I thought I knew why; his ‘hip kids’ were gone. He was glad to have Harley here, glad he was bonding with Ned, and hopeful they were filling some of the gap left in May’s life for right now, but that couldn’t have been a substitute, for him, for what had happened to Wanda and Vision and Pietro, and maybe most of all for what he had watched happen to Peter.

Even with Bruce at his side, Shuri staying in touch and working on ideas any time she could find a spare minute, and a network of surviving scientists around the world throwing every idea they had at the wall, Tony wasn’t having any luck solving the puzzle of reversing the snap. I expected him to spend days on end in his dungeon and the labs, but in that I was surprised—he popped out every few hours and scurried around the tower’s occupied floors. After spotting him a couple of times, I asked JARVIS what was going on and if I could help. “Sir appears to enter this mode when he has been working alone for some time. His vital signs are generally elevated, though not into full panic mode. He asks my direction to the nearest resident of the Tower, and once I provide that information and contact is made, his systems return to equilibrium.”

There wasn’t much I could do to puzzle the situation out other than ask him. I was unsure how to approach it, until late one afternoon I was busy in my office and heard something behind me, not a movement or a voice, just a presence, maybe a small huff of breath. I glanced over my shoulder and found Tony in the doorway, his eyes wide and his face sweaty. “Tony? You okay, hon?” I asked.

“Huh? Yeah! Sure. Fine, absolutely. All good. Just taking a break, you know. Breaks are good, you and every other sentient being I know have been trying to tell me that for years now, right? Sometimes you just—just need to see another sentient being, somebody that you know, that, um, knows you.”

I didn’t call him on using the second person to refer to himself. Instead, I went to him, took his hands in mine and squeezed gently against the fine tremors I felt there. After a few seconds of my steady regard, Tony looked away and around. “When I was floating around out there in that tin can,” he said, “sometimes I’d doze off, and I’d…dream I was back, here, the workshop usually, and I’d ask J something, but he didn’t answer. So I’d come upstairs and–sometimes some of the team, or whoever, were hanging around, but they never spoke to me. I’d go to the windows and look down at the city, and the people down on the sidewalk started to crumble, and I’d turn around, sometimes in time to see all the faces, all your faces, looking at me while they crumbled…and sometimes it was too late and all I saw were little piles of ash—” He shuddered. “And, then of course I’d wake up back aboard the Speedwell with an albatross around my fucking neck. So sometimes if I’m down in the dungeon, it’ll—come back to me, and I’m not sure where I really am. It’s stupid, I know it is, but I have to ask J, and go find somebody, and talk to them and touch them, just so I know I’m…I’m not dreaming.”

“Not dreaming, hot rod, I promise,” I managed. “You’ll know you aren’t dreaming, when I shove some of the vat of jambalaya that’s simmering downstairs in your face.”

In a minute, he gave me a small smile, and then pushed away. “How do you do that?” he demanded. “You aren’t even glaring, you just, look at me and it’s like Veritaserum, I spill my guts. It’s not even that we’re friends! You did it to me the morning I came out as Iron Man. _‘well I never said you were a superhero’,_ ” he mock-quoted me in a high-pitched tone. 

“You always say words are my superpower,” I countered, “but sometimes silence works better. Maybe I’ve always known, if I gave you enough room, you’d make my point for me.” With that, I elbowed him and changed the subject.

Days, and meals, and weeks went by, with all the Avengers and their circles caught between adjusting to the ‘new normal’ and fighting it. Baby steps were made, though the general optimism after Tony’s safe return was starting to wear thin. Carol scoured the galactic corridor, joined sometimes by Rocket and Nebula in the _Benatar_ , in search of any bit of lore, any thinker or sage or techie who had any brainstorms about how the torn fabric of the universe could be mended. Thor and Loki were settling their people into the place they had named New Asgard. I wouldn’t soon forget the look of bemusement mingled with just a whiff of pride, the day Bruce came back to the tower from a used-bookstore excursion with Steve to tell how a pack of kids had recognized him and, not fled, but approached him with excitement to show him science books they were buying. Steve looked proud too, and maybe a bit jealous.

The movement in Clint’s life seemed to take it by spells, as Great-aunt Avonelle puts it. At times, he pushed positivity and buoyed the others. Then he’d crash, and rail about the futility of it all, and it was our turn to return the favor and lift him up. If he didn’t have something scheduled with Nat, or with Rhodey, he’d disappear for a few days at a time, during those crashes. We never knew where he went—well, I say ‘we’ didn’t; I mean I didn’t, and if anybody else knew they never copped to it. I imagine Nat did. Wherever he was, I suspected Clint was taking brief leave from his official status, to hunt down those who were taking brutal advantage of the world turned upside down. He always did it by the book though, by the Accords, even though many of their components were currently in limbo, considering how strange things had become.

Clint had just come back from one of those vanishing acts, and I wanted to whip up a celebratory supper; but for once, I was at a loss for menu ideas. Yes, it happens, sometimes. I asked JARVIS who was in the tower, and where, and upon his reply that all six Avengers were meeting on the common floor, I headed down to gather votes. I needed to huddle with Nat anyway, and pass along some intel about minor heroes that had been submitted to the website. When I stepped off the elevator, though, and turned toward the sitting area, I paused with one foot in the air at the sound of Tony’s voice raised and downright spitting with anger. At what, exactly, I didn’t know; could have been at himself, at Thanos, at the whole damn situation. The more time lapsed without him cracking the riddle, the more on edge he became, and it was rubbing off; the morning he pushed a gravy-laden biscuit around his plate and muttered something about how he shouldn’t be eating when Peter couldn’t, I nearly blew my own stack. So if he had gotten to the point of yelling, I figured it wasn’t a good idea to approach with a question about food.

What can I say, though. I’m a reporter, I’m nosy to my core. Quietly I stepped close enough to take a look. Nat was sitting on a loveseat with Clint smushed beside her and leaning in; she spied me peeking and gave a tiny jerk of her head to gesture me in. Bruce stood near the bar, holocharts hovering in the air beside him. And Tony was in Steve’s face in the middle of the room. “I got nothing for you, Cap,” he yelled. “I’ve got no clues, no strategies, no options. Zero. Zip. Nada.”

“At least you’ve got—” Steve began.

He stopped short, but Tony was on a roll now. “I’ve got what? You aren’t the kind to throw shit up in my face, so what is it I’ve got that you don’t? Is it the people I love, not snapped? Fuck knows I’m glad I have them, but I had nothing to do with that. if somebody was orchestrating things I’d have no pull there. At best I’d be middle management on that org chart. I hear what people say though: _man, how lucky is Stark, he didn’t lose anybody._ Well—” 

“No!’ Steve burst out. “I know better, Tony. I know you lost as much as everybody else. We’re not askin’ you to fix everything. We’re askin’ you to not run yourself into the ground. I don’t care what the _fuck_ Strange said, we are not gonna let Thanos reach out from his damn grave and take you away from us!”

Tony was quiet, then, as if that was not what he had expected. “Um. Okay.”

“What I meant,” Steve continued, now on a roll himself, “was, at least you’ve got something to do, something that may make a difference. All of you do!” He gestured around. “Nat’s got her kids, Clint’s continent-jumping with Rhodey, Bruce is the latest thing online. Thor’s making a new home for his people. And me? I’m the dancing monkey again. I’m making personal appearances, turning up at what few events there are, waving Captain America in people’s faces. I can’t change things. Serum and muscle can’t do that.”

“But heart can,” Nat said, and nodded toward me perched on a stool. “I know Chrissy’s been checking in with Bucky’s garden kids out in Brooklyn. I bet they could use some help, and I’m thinking your presence there might do the most good.”

Tony nodded vigorously, then waved a finger at Steve. “Also. I don’t have the time right now, but I would lay money Resilience Center needs all the help it can get right now too. Remember the time you took over a group for a few minutes? I didn’t think the leader was gonna get his seat back when he came back from the john, those guys and gals were so eager to talk to you, and listen to you too. Hell, wouldn’t that blow Wilson’s mind if he came back to that?”

The casual reference to one of our lost ones, and to his return, was something I had rarely heard from Tony, but was good to hear. “A very wise man, Steve,” Bruce put in, “once said there are two kinds of work a person can do: the kind that changes the world, and the kind that keeps the world from falling apart.”

Steve cocked his head. “The Dalai Lama?”

“Springsteen.”

“Ha!” Steve laughed, and the mood eased. I even felt brave enough to broach the subject of supper, and the consensus ended up being my country-ham version of pasta carbonara. Steve headed for a shower and Bruce to close up a program in his lab before mealtime.

I snagged Nat to share my info, and while she pored over the printout, I listened as Clint caught Tony. “Picked up a tourist trophy for you,” he said, and handed Tony a small rounded doll painted bright red. “It’s called a daruma. Set ‘im on the bar and push him.”

Tony did, and the little guy popped right back up. “You bought me a Japanese weeble, Legolas.”

“The literal embodiment of _nana korobi yaoki_.” Clint’s smile was fond. “Kinda like you.”

The long moment of silence made Nat’s eyes flick their way, even though she didn’t budge. “I’m not quitting, Barton,” Tony said. “I swear to you, I’m not giving up until I bust this shit wide open.”

Clint put the doll in Tony’s hands, his smile wilting. “Don’t say that. Don’t give me hope, shellhead, when we don’t know hope is there to be had. Just take care of you. We can’t lose anybody else. I can’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weebles wobble but they don’t fall down! LOL. Weebles are toys from the 70s, as seen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4293jP2KWTk  
> And here are daruma dolls, with that same quote Clint already said about Tony. https://asahiimports.com/2014/01/25/daruma-dolls-fall-7-times-get-up-8/
> 
> Yes, that line is an actual Bruce Springsteen quote and one of my all time fave quotes period.
> 
> In the conversation with Chrissy, Tony isn’t forgetting the name of the _Benatar_. His reference is an allusion to the epic poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, said to have been inspired by the true story of a ship called the Speedwell. In it, the narrator gets his ship and crew stranded at sea after his cocky irresponsible act leads to the death of an albatross, a good luck bird to seafarers. The mariner ends up the only survivor of his team, left alive by the grim reaper to bear the guilt of his deeds, symbolized by a saying that we use to this day for a person carrying guilt for their past-- ‘carrying an albatross around their neck’. For Tony to know the poem’s backstory, he had to have done some research, which isn’t surprising when you know that the iconic heavy metal band Iron Maiden (hee) wrote a song based on it. I have to admit I didn’t expect him to go this hard, but he clearly sees himself on some level as the mariner, blaming himself for the loss of his companions; and if you asked him, he would probably say Peter is his albatross.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy works to fine-tune Extremis, deals with the increasingly fractious press, and re-establishes a connection that may yield results she never dreamed of.

I could empathize with Steve’s outburst about purpose, and his feeling the lack thereof. There were moments I felt that too, though thankfully not as many of them as in the recent past. Being in a manner of speaking the navigator of the Avengers’ trek through this altered landscape kept me hopping. When I wasn’t dealing with press, I was working social media; and when I wasn’t doing my day job, I turned my focus to Extremis.

With their mutual cooperation treaty holding steady, Bruce had no need for a designated panic room to contain Hulk’s rages, so I inherited it. It was the safest place in the tower to manipulate fire, obviously, and the most private; I would have had to root through my archives to see if it had ever been even mentioned in an interview or news piece. Every afternoon, I blocked out time in my schedule to go there. Sometimes it was to work on small things, fine-tuning my control; sometimes it was big things, lobbing fireballs at the virtual target JARVIS set up. (He had plenty of experience at that; for years, he confided, he’d been posting up a virtual basketball goal for Tony to ‘crumple up’ and shoot his failed holodocs at.)

Periodically, I’d suit up and go through my paces, tracing the training routines the Dora Milaje had taught me. To start with, I still used my _mambele_ , but one day I got a wild hair up my ass, called up some energy and shaped it into the long form I had used to block Brunhilde. This time, though, I tried holding and moving it as though it were a sword—and it worked!

It was just about the most excited I’d been about anything related to Extremis. That included the ‘flying’ lessons with Tony, which weren’t exactly flying. The spurts of fire and hot air I was able to produce didn’t have much range, so all I could do was pop up in the air a few feet, then come back down in a controlled fall. It was a bit disappointing, but I’d blown it off. This, though, this he needed to see. I felt like a Jedi with a— _uh oh._

Instead of Tony, I asked JARVIS to call Pepper to come upstairs when she got a minute. I just had to show my new acquisition off to somebody, but as I explained to her when she arrived, “It reminds me of a lightsaber, and that made me think of Peter. You know Tony would think the same, and i just don't want to wake those memories and hurt him more.”

Pep understood. “Bruce was running some numbers yesterday, something about time travel, of all things. You know they must be getting desperate if he’s reaching that far, as solid as he is. He was explaining why they couldn’t go back in time, to get the Stones, or stop Thanos—something about the past would be their present then, and our time would be their future and their past—oh, I don’t know.”

“That rings a bell,” I said sadly. “It came up one time, a good while ago, in conversation around here, as one does. I think Peter—”

I stopped, and Pepper nodded. “He did. Tony remembered it too, and he—he almost broke down.”

With a nod, I flopped down on the Hulk room’s shock-absorbent floor, and Pep kicked off her shoes and tugged her skirt hem up far enough to sit beside me. “I wonder, though,” I said after a minute. “We were talking about ways to get Deuce back home when Peter said that. Do you suppose they could access the multiverse, maybe get another universe’s Infinity Stones?”

Pep cocked her head in thought. “No idea. You probably know more about the science of that than I do.”

“Then you are behind the curve, girlfriend, because I know next to zero. They’d have to be put back afterwards, though, probably. I think Strange said something about not changing things in other timelines; it’d create too many offshoots, kind of like suckers weaken a tomato plant. Won’t hurt to ask, though I imagine Tony’s already thought of it.”

We chatted idly for a few minutes, one of the rare times we could both make believe things were normal, or what passed for it in our lives. To my mild surprise, Pepper said she was working with her Rescue suit. “We can’t count on a combination of good will and shell shock to keep the planet calm forever. The Avengers are short-handed, and when a villain realizes this is probably a good time to pull a caper, while people are stunned and vulnerable, they’ll need every warm body. I never wanted to be a hero, no, but you didn’t either, and look at you.” She nudged me with a grin. “You’re kind of my role model.”

“Heaven forbid,” I returned. “You’re right, though. Sooner rather than later, somebody’s gonna act a damn fool and need to be put in their place. I guess…I’m more than an honorary Avenger now, and so are you. Whatever I do, I... just want to make Bucky proud, when he gets back.”

I continued my practice, trying to make this literal fire-blade something I could rely on. I asked JARVIS if he could generate a virtual opponent I could spar with, but he had another idea. Using the holoconferencing tech, Okoye was able to beam in from Wakanda, observe me (with amazement carefully concealed in her way) and give me feedback. JARVIS also shipped the needed holo-gear to New Asgard so Brunhilde could advise me too, when she had a spare minute, which seemed to be rare. Thor had his brother and friends back, yes, but she confided he still went into periodic funks, drinking entirely too much, blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong for his people. From what she told me, Loki was working his ass off, but he had had his fill of leading. (I felt him on that score; some of us are better suited to roles behind the scenes. For all I was the Avengers’ spokesperson, that was still not the same as being a hero, to my mind.) Consequently, Brunhilde and Sif were sharing a lot of the functions of rule, though without any formal titles. 

The next time I was in the labs, I asked about the multiverse concept. As I figured, Tony had beaten me to it, and tried mightily to pursue it, with no luck. He didn’t have a clue how Strange had opened a way through, and the gap Deuce had fallen through wasn’t even caused from this end after all, according to the sorcerer. It would take figuring that out, something two Tony Starks working full-time hadn’t been able to crack, before they could even move to the shitload of problems that came next: little things like locating the Stones, grabbing them, devising a receptacle for them, and using them. Tony rambled off on some side venture about what to do with them after all that, but Bruce was more interested in hearing how we had ended up, however briefly, with two Tonys, and deeply disappointed he hadn’t gotten to meet Deuce.

Pepper, as usual, was on the money on multiple levels. At the next presser, the amity of the press started to wear thin. “Black Widow, you’ve put out a lot of talk about the lower-level heroes,” a guy from the _Big Apple News_ website said, “There’s been no mention of the city’s best-loved local costumed character though, one you were rumored to have offered a spot on the Avengers roster to and been turned down. In addition, there are also rumors that he accompanied Iron Man on his failed mission to stop Thanos from wrecking our world. So, please tell the people of New York the truth. Do you know if Spider-Man is alive? And if he isn’t, then tell us who he was so we know who to give thanks to and mourn for.”

It had come up periodically in my contacts with the media, but I had managed to brush it off until now. Nat’s eyes narrowed, and the look she fixed on the reporter should have made him shake in his sneakers, if he had one lick of sense. “You assume a lot, presupposing that we know who Spider-Man or any other hero outside our team is. If you’ll recall, at our previous briefing, when I appealed to the community for help tracing local heroes, I made it plain we did not need any personal information. Now, doesn’t it seem farcical for me to have done that, if we already knew masked heroes’ identities; unless you’re going to argue that we’re lying, and that doesn’t seem wise at this point in time. As for the question about the off-world force…Tony, do you want to take that?”

Nat looked over her shoulder where Tony stood with the rest of the team—the presser was planned to be a short one, so the team wasn’t seated—and her focus shifted, from an air of displeasure to one of concern. “Not really, but I’m not hanging you out here to dry on it, Itsy Bitsy,” he murmured, then stepped forward and raised his voice. “For starters, dumbass,” he addressed the reporter, “the makeup of that group isn’t the public’s business. No offense, everybody, but right now, the people who need to know who was on that team and where they are now, know. As far as the identities of people who may have been snapped: if we knew who they were, why the fuck would we tell you, when they clearly wanted that kept private and we’re working on a way to bring them back? We do that, we’re accepting that they aren’t coming back, and I will not accept that. Not until every…No. We aren’t giving up hope.”

Nat put her hand on his arm to calm him while I stepped to the mikes. My control over Extremis was light-years better than it had been before I went to Wakanda, sure, but a flash of anger could still be literal, and at this moment, I was ready to flame-broil the hapless but still ornery-looking correspondent. “Just in case Natasha and Tony weren’t sufficiently clear,” I said, reining myself in hard, “the Avengers have no right to share any information we may or may not have, about anyone who is not an official member of the initiative.”

“Absolutely,” Steve agreed, and when I glanced over at him in gratitude, the energy of my anger was channeled into trying to suppress an inappropriate chortle at the mother of all Disappointed Captain America looks that was raking the entire assembled press corps. “Anyone who calls themselves a professional journalist ought to know better than to even be asking that.” 

The Big Apple jackass slunk out with his figurative tail between his legs; Steve wasn’t the only one dropping the hammer of disapproval on his sorry ass. The press, and the public in general, still stood pretty united and firm behind the Avengers. It was gratifying to see, but more gratifying was the team circling up, supporting each other.

Part of the corroboration for my knowledge of how everyday folks felt toward my friends came, as expected, from social media, limping though it was with half the world’s IT gone: the comments, arguments, and encouraging posts. Along with that was the volume of tips on street heroes, submitted to AvengersOnline’s anonymous in box. The fact that people felt safe sending us leads spoke a lot to how trustworthy they still found the team.

One surprise arrived in my own in box one day a week or so after the confrontational presser. It came from a reporter for a small Bay Area weekly, a stranger to me, but I called her, as she asked. Her voice was warm on the line as she introduced herself. “First, I’m glad to finally get a chance to thank you for being my role model,” she said. “Do you remember a little group of teenage would-be filmmakers you met one night in Malibu?”

I did, of course, but I had no idea that I had inspired Letta, the brains of the Scooby gang who had set out looking for UFOs and ended up recording the battle that led to Tony’s public emergence as Iron Man. Turned out, she had become a reporter, moved to San Francisco, followed my association with the Avengers, and forged her own when she met Sam while doing a story on veterans with PTSD, not long before he joined the team.

“Wilson isn’t the only hero I’ve met though,” she told me. “My boyfriend Ignacio’s cousin knew a guy who did some super-stuff on the side, and introduced us, and I in turn introduced him to Sam. His name is—was—Scott Lang, but he went by Ant-Man.”

“Yes! Sam mentioned an Ant-Man, once, I remember.”

“I went to Japan to do a piece, a few days before the snap, and stayed in place there to cover the mess, so I didn’t know until I saw your news conference the other day that you were asking for info on lower-level heroes. I’ve tried to find him, but with Nacho and Luis both gone I…I haven’t had much luck. One thing though, I know Lang had a child.”

“Oh. That’ll make Natasha doubly determined to trace his whereabouts. Send me whatever you’ve got and I’ll pass it along to her. She may have more contacts, and needing to find this child will let her pursue them without compromising Lang’s identity more. Thanks.”

Nat probably has more contacts than SHIELD itself. A couple of days later, she said she had tracked down Lang’s daughter, living in Frisco with her mom and stepdad. She had contacted them and found the stepdad was snapped, the family struggling. “They already knew his identity, so I’m going to make a run out there, touch base with them, let them know the Avengers are here to help them, discreetly, with whatever they need,” she told us.

She offered to take Bruce along (which I thought was a sterling idea) but for once, he actually did have a full schedule. As Tony had predicted, he was becoming a science hero to youngsters, and when he wasn’t in the lab, he was much in demand for school appearances. Granted, the first few times, he was so nervous he insisted Tony come along so if Hulk had any issues Veronica could be at hand to subdue him, but nothing of the kind happened. Kids liked Hulk, and Hulk liked them.

The science bros tried and discarded a few more alternate approaches in the two days after Nat took a quinjet west. Rocket and Nebula got back from another unsuccessful run the second morning, and Rocket joined Tony and Bruce in the lab. Then, late on the third afternoon, Nat called. “Scott Lang is alive,” she said, “and he thinks he has an idea that could get everyone back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM, y'all lookin' for this? lol
> 
> In the MCU canon verse, Luis & the X-Con team know about Scott's life as Ant-Man, as do Maggie and Jim; and Sam located Scott to ask his help during Civil War through a female reporter who meets Luis' cousin Ignacio. I tweaked it in this verse when I realized I’d never revisited the Scoobies that Chrissy met waaay back in Placement of Angels. Letta was indeed the brains of that outfit (you may remember one of her pals called her Hermione), and seeing a strong independent fearless journalist like Chrissy could totally spur a smart teenage gal undecided on a career path to follow her. (Nacho is her nickname for Ignacio btw, just so you don't get confused.)


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nat brings Scott Lang to meet with the Avengers. His idea of a 'time heist' is greeted with initial skepticism, until a breakthrough brings new hope, and Chrissy thinks she knows now why Tony's survival was essential to reversing the snap.

Only the Black Widow would drop a bombshell like that on earth’s mightiest heroes, then hang up with no further explanation. Every Avenger and Avenger-adjacent hero in the vicinity was about ready to wring her neck (lovingly, for the most part) by the time the quinjet touched down on the tower roof the following afternoon. Nat, naturally, was cool as the other side of the pillow. Her passenger—was not. Scott Lang was a pleasant-faced guy, wide-eyed as he stared around, and about ready to fully fanboy out when Nat introduced him to the team. 

“I pulled in a couple of markers,” Nat began when everybody had settled in the common area, “and chased down the leads your friend sent, Chris. A van was registered in Scott’s name, towed in after the snap, and impounded in a storage warehouse waiting for somebody to claim it. I went to have a look, see if there might be some gear, or indication he might not have been snapped. No offense,” she threw Scott’s way, “but your past history is rather…checkered.”

“As an Arrow Cab,” he agreed readily. He had sat down for all of a hot minute, but was standing now, shifting from foot to foot while his eyes darted around.

“The security guard at U-Store-It let me in. Pretty rough place, rat-infested. Reminded me of that hipster boarding house in Bratislava, Clint.” Ignoring Clint’s visible shudder, she went on, “The van was loaded down with tech, nothing like I’d ever seen before.”

“Which didn’t stop you from fingering it, right, Romanoff?” Tony wisecracked.

“Wouldn’t’ve stopped me,” Rocket agreed.

Scott’s jaw dropped. “Honestly, until this exact second, I thought you were a Build-A-Bear,” he said to the raccoon. 

Tony cackled and Rocket glared. “Maybe I am,” he retorted.

Nat looked like she was trying not to sigh. “Children, please?” she said patiently before she went on. “Yes, Tony, as a matter of fact I did touch the control box that was flashing an error message, and damn good thing I did too. Apparently, as I learned after a device in the back of the van spit him out, his support team all got snapped, and he was trapped in…well, I’d better let him explain that. Oh, by the way, the van and all the gear are on the jet. They’re very small, now.”

“Very—small?” Steve asked hesitantly. A hint of the trademark smirk we saw all too rarely these days curled Nat’s lip, and she held her hands about a foot apart, before she nodded toward Scott.

Now that all eyes were on him, he gulped. “Have any of you ever studied Quantum Physics?” 

Tony and Bruce exchanged meaningful looks. “Probably enough to carry on a conversation,” Bruce said dryly.

Scott sputtered. “Oh God, yeah, of course, Bruce Banner, you’re like—a god of science, and, well, Tony Stark.”

Tony just lifted an eyebrow at the suddenly contemptuous tone. “Have we met? Because I have this unpleasant history of people using brief brushes with me as excuses for heel turns, and really, not feeling that right now. My sole priority here is to find out if anything you know can help us undo Thanos’ bullshit. So, carry on?” 

Lang blinked, as if that was not what he had expected to hear. “Um, okay, all right. So...right before Thanos, from the timeline Black Widow gave me, I was in a place called the Quantum Realm. The Quantum Realm is like its own microscopic universe. To get in there, you have to be incredibly small. That’s what the Pym gear does. Hope, she's my... she was my... she was supposed to pull me out. And then Thanos happened, and I got stuck in there.”

“That had to be a rough few months,” Rhodey, who had just flown in with Clint, murmured.

“No, see, that’s the thing,” Scott shook his head. “For me, it was less than half an hour! The rules of the Quantum Realm aren't like they are up here. Everything is unpredictable.”

“So you’re saying time works differently in this--Quantum Realm,” Bruce said. 

“Makes sense,” Tony agreed. “The shenanigans with Deuce would tend to confirm that.”

“The only problem is right now, we don't have a way to navigate it.” Scott started to pace, and his voice rose a bit as excitement took him. Despite the urgency of the situation, I couldn’t help but smile to myself; he reminded me of Tony on a science binge. “But what if we did? I’m just an electrical engineer, I don’t have the next-level knowledge Dr. Pym had to develop the tech, but I can't stop thinking about it. What if we could somehow control the chaos, and we could navigate it? What if there was a way to enter the Quantum Realm at a certain point in time but then exit at another point in time? Like... like before Thanos.”

Tony’s forehead furrowed, and he spoke slowly, as if caught between logic and hope. “You’re talking time travel, in essence. Sorry, Grant Williams, we’ve been pursuing that avenue, right into a brick wall with no escape hatch. Quantum fluctuation messes with the Planck scale, which then triggers the Deutsch proposition. It was a billion to one longshot that got you back in one piece.”

“The stones are in the past,” Scott countered. “We can go get them. I’m, um, pretty practiced at acquiring things from people. Checkered past, like Black Widow said. It’d be like—a time heist.”

“A time heist,” Tony said, in the most poker-faced tone of skepticism I thought I’d ever heard from him.

“Outside my area of expertise, personally,” Bruce deadpanned.

“Then there’s the EPR paradox to worry about.” Tony might have been trying to still sound doubtful, but he sounded to me more like his brain was cranking up to list the problems he could solve to get the result he wanted. “It's tricky. Dangerous. Takes a lot of thought to work around, if it’s even possible.”

“Good thing we’ve got the biggest brains going, right here, then, huh?” Steve said with a grin at Tony and Bruce.

We called out for Chinese, and scattered after eating. Nat and Scott retrieved his gear from the quinjet—and Nat was not kidding, the van and all its crazy gear had somehow been shrunk to fit in a couple of cardboard boxes and a milk crate. Scott tried to explain, something about subatomic particles and extradimensional excursions. I wished Strange was here; it sounded entirely too much like some of the magical pursuits he had talked about. Tony vanished into the dungeon, mumbling about eigenvalues, particle factoring, and spectral decomp. With a hopeful prayer in my heart for the first time in months, I turned in.

Next morning, Scott blew up his kit in the tower’s training gym. Not literally; he manipulated the particles he had talked about to enlarge his ‘mobile lab’ from the size of a Barbie doll van to a full-sized vehicle. He donned a special suit and helmet, which, he explained, was needed in order to protect the user of the size-altering tech. Bruce looked over the control panel he was presented with, and fiddled with it for a few minutes. “This might work,” he said in a tone of cautious optimism. “If you’re willing to give it a try, Scott, I think I can—”

“Hold your proverbial horses, Nymphadora,” Tony yelled and tore into the big room at a dead run. “EPR paradox, remember? Instead of pushing Lang through time, you might wind up pushing time through Lang. Make him old, or a baby.”

“Ew,” Scott said. “Risk me peeing on myself, either way.” 

“Fortunately, I fixed it.” Tony brandished what looked like an oversized wristwatch. “A fully functional time-space GPS.” He shot a mischievous grin my way. “Wonder Woman back in Wakanda wouldn’t share her magic bracelets, so I made my own.”

I snickered and smacked his shoulder lightly. “So this GPS,” Steve began with the lift of a question.

“Allows for accurate displacement through time and space.” Tony strode over and handed it to Scott. “The user, or whoever you want to program it, which, in all honesty, probably ought to be me, inputs the dates and location they want to go to. The GPS records and classifies different verses by the oscillatory function of inflation, and assigns an ID accordingly. My thought is, get a good gander at this piece of sartorial, uh, splendor,” he patted the shoulder of Scott’s suit, “take elements of it, elements of my suits, and produce a nanotech rig for safe travel that’ll use the wrist device as a housing.” Nobody said a word. Speaking only for myself, having known Tony as long as I had, I didn’t think there was much of anything he could do that could strike me silent from sheer awe. I was a fool. “What?” He looked around. “Everybody speechless in appreciation of the grandeur that is me?”

Scott winced, but everybody else smiled. We knew what Tony meant. “Absolutely,” Steve said with a bright grin. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”

At that, Scott nearly fell over. “Captain America swears???” he gasped, and the tension broke like Iron Man had kicked a hole in a plate glass window. 

“You just _had_ to encourage him, Cap?” Bruce mock-groaned while we all laughed till we were breathless. “Speak for yourself. The rest of us were just kind of trying to process…”

Bruce waved his hands to finish the sentence, but it was Clint who spoke up. “Hope,” he said simply. "Trying to process hope." I nodded silently, optimism kindling in my chest hotter than Extremis.

The puckish glint in Tony’s eye softened. “Yeah,” he returned. “Wish I could’ve gotten you some sooner, Katniss.”

“We got it now, shellhead,” Clint gave a firm nod. “Good enough. Let’s bake this fuckin’ cake.”

“What changed?” I asked Tony, while the others passed the GPS around, and Scott demonstrated his shrinking tech. “Y’all had been banging on this for months with no progress.”

“I had J apply some vectors I hadn’t tried before. It looked closer, but still a near miss. I was ready to pack it in, put it in a box and tell Lang it wasn’t viable. I just looked around the shop, mentally wandering, you know, and I saw this picture, of me and Peter when I gave him that makeshift internship certificate.”

“The one Happy took? Yeah, he showed me that. He was gonna have you print May off a copy.”

“I did, and, ah, one for myself. Anyway, the cert, the kid’s holding it upside down, in the picture.” I nodded, remembering that too. “And, I guess you could say, it gave me a mild inspiration. I asked JARVIS to run one last sim, in the shape of a moebius strip, but invert it; and it—it looked just like the equation, or spell or what-the-fuck-ever, that Strange used to open the portal to send Deuce home. I decided to give it a try, see if I could make something practical deriving from it; if it didn’t work, figured I’d haul Barton in to check the math, or Captain Eidetic Memory to see if he’d noticed the eldritch runes that Bleeker Street cast. But hey, it worked, so.”

“Nice work, Stark,” Rocket even extended himself to say. “Not sure anybody else could’ve made that get. Don’t get cocky.”

Tony locked eyes with the smaller being. “Have you ever watched Star Wars?” he asked.

“Watched ‘em? Hell, human, I’ve been in more than a few.”

While Rocket and Tony got into one of their usual snark-battles, I found myself thinking back on what Rocket had just said. Somebody else might have done the tech work, yes, but it was Tony’s heart, his fondness for Peter and his pain at that loss, that had been the last piece in this puzzle. Maybe this was what Strange saw; maybe this was why Tony had to survive, because nobody else could have made the connection that opened the door for us to hope to bring our loved ones home. I prayed that I was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NO A DAMNED RAT DID NOT SAVE THE UNIVERSE. FIGHT ME. Ahem, sorry, I have strong feelings about that piece-of-crap writing.
> 
> Scott compares himself to Arrow-Checker Cab, a San Francisco service that appropriately enough went out of business for being shady. LOL
> 
> The time frames Scott cites are based on what he tells Steve and Nat in Endgame. I figured that while he was stuck in the QR, every minute he experienced equaled roughly six days in the canon verse. Since there is no idiotic 5 year time jump in this verse, I prorated the timeline accordingly. 
> 
> Tony nickname notes—he calls Scott Grant Williams, the star of the classic 50s scifi movie The Incredible Shrinking Man. If you have read Harry Potter, you likely caught why he calls Bruce Nymphadora--because she can change her appearance, as Bruce now can. 
> 
> And now you see why back in Civility, I decided instead of writing a separate short about Deuce dropping from the MCU verse into mine, I made it part of the main story--because the mechanics of getting him home became part of the knowledge base Tony used to crack the riddle of the time heist! :)


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Avengers compound, work begins in earnest on the time heist. The team and Scott get acquainted, Chrissy practices flight, and Tony makes an unplanned purchase.

In the weeks and months since the snap, the world felt to me like it was shuffling through molasses, weirdly slow in the way walking in a dream—or a nightmare, more like—sometimes was. With Scott’s arrival and Tony’s breakthrough, things took a leap from slow-motion to fast-forward.

The ‘science squad’ decamped to the compound. Tony and Bruce insisted building a large-scale quantum setup was not something they wanted to do in the middle of Manhattan, even a decimated one, and Scott and Rocket were more than willing to go along. The twists they intended to put on Scott’s ‘Pym tech’ could be inherently unstable, and they weren’t about to risk creating a wormhole in the basement of the tower, or a blast crater where the tower used to be. I made a casual mention in my next press release that some Avengers were shifting their base of operations upstate for a while, and would be moving back and forth. It wasn’t a bad thing; people liked to see them out and about.

For all his eagerness to throw himself into a whole new field of endeavor, and try something that might mend our broken world, Tony was, Pepper confided, not thrilled about the relocation. “He says it’s that he doesn’t want to leave me here alone, but really…it’s him who doesn’t want to be alone.”

“I know,” I said. “He’s vented to me a couple of times. I was going to stay here and keep you company, but if you’d rather, I can tag along with them and keep an eye on him. There’s some tricks with Extremis I haven’t wanted to try here, so I can use that as my cover.”

Pep assured me she would be fine there, between her work, Tony’s promise to come back to town every few days (which, along with being certain he ate and slept on something approximating a regular routine, I would make sure he kept), and her own little SI squad. Happy was as protective of her as ever, May was a steadfast presence, and Harley had gotten very fond of her and declared himself the man of the house, much to her quiet amusement and Tony’s bemusement. Steve was going to hop back and forth as needed, and Nat promised to check in on Pepper between her various jobs.

So, I packed up the basics I would need for a few weeks to do my work from the compound and hopped a quinjet north. It was so quiet, Tony admitted by the second day he would definitely have to drive or fly back to NYC on the regular, even if he hadn’t promised Pepper he would, but just to keep what was left of his sanity. I felt him; it was a lovely area, with the small lake within walking distance that reminded me of growing up in the country, but every time I took to the running paths that Pietro had laid out through the woods, the sparseness of the birdsong was an eerie noise all its own. Every time I ran, I missed Quicksilver terribly. With Extremis pretty much leashed, I could uncork my full speed, and while it still wasn’t near his, he wouldn’t have to slow down as much now.

More wistful memories rose when I slipped into the (generally vacant) training area to experiment with my flight idea. As I played with it, I angled myself where a shot of superheated air sent me not straight up, but up and forward, then went with the flow as Tony had coached me and used another measured discharge let me control my descent. It wasn’t exactly flight, but it would let me go over obstacles or cover a lot of distance in a very short time, somewhat like Bruce’s leaps as Hulk, or Wanda using her power.

My practice sessions went unremarked, since everybody else in residence at the compound was busier than a moth in a mitten. Once the quantum transport structure was sketched out, Rocket and Scott, with Bruce’s help in both his forms, focused on assembling it in the big main hangar, while Tony divided his time between working with them on it and developing the protective nanosuits. They were a marvel, combining his own tech and designs with those from Scott’s suit and from an extra suit from the Benatar. The time-space GPS served as their housing, as he had planned, and flowed out around the wearer’s clothing. “We’d be up shit creek in one more way, if Deuce hadn’t given you a leg up on the nanotech,” I said as I watched Tony test it out. “With everything else going on, you might not have had time to perfect it before…”

“Yeah. Wonder if we could find his timeline and check on him. Not having had a way to mark or designate universes then, though, it’d be hunt and peck to locate him now. Although at least now we’ve got a way to keep track of where we’ve been.”

“Maybe,” I said before I could stop myself, “when Strange gets back, you two could find the right verse. I’d like to know if Deuce got his team in line. Maybe they already cleaned their Thanos’ clock.”

Tony’s hands stilled for a moment. “Sure. Remember to ask him that, would you? You know me, can’t remember my social security number.”

That was bullshit, but he did have a lot on his mind, so I promised I would. For his own part, Tony was doing well at keeping his own promises, the ones he’d made to Pepper. He ate and slept some every day, and took a suit back to the city several times the first couple of weeks. On one particularly gorgeous day, he decided to drive instead; he had some kinks to work out of the quantum suit helmet, and driving helped him think. Marrying Iron Man’s headup display to the holographic projections of the Guardians’ advanced offworld tech wasn’t child’s play even for Tony, and I knew that frustrated him on a near-infinite number of levels, as I commented to Scott as we sat outside the next day eating lunch. “Yeah, guy like him, guess he’s used to getting what he wants,” Scott said around a mouthful of taco.

“Um, no, not so much. More like, he’s used to being able to produce what’s expected of him, and it’s upsetting if he can’t. Lord knows I’ve spent most of the ten years we’ve been friends trying to get him to ease up on himself. Not gonna happen, though.”

“Hank,” Scott said reflectively, “Dr. Pym, that is, who invented the particles and built the Quantum Tunnel and my suit and all—he worked with a Stark. Tony’s old man, I think. Said the guy tried to steal his work, and he’d never trust a Stark or let them near his stuff as long as he lived.” He gazed off into the trees. “When he first brought me on board to help him with some—issues, I wanted to get in touch with the Avengers then, but he wouldn’t because of that. When Black Widow got me out of the Quantum Realm, told me what had gone down, and I saw that Hank and…well, Hank was gone, I figured it wasn’t breaking the promise I made to him, to come to you. Well, them. I guess you’re not an Avenger.”

“They call me one, and honestly, I’ve quit arguing with them.” I returned with a grin. Scott didn’t know I had any kind of abilities more unusual than media-wrangling, and it was going to stay that way as far as I was concerned. 

We munched and he shared stories about his past as a sort of Robin Hood thief. He’d met his best friend in prison, and when he mentioned Luis I made the connection with Letta’s boyfriend's cousin, who had introduced Scott and Sam. “Luis loves a good story,” Scott said with sadness in his eyes. “He would’ve gotten such a kick out of hanging with the Avengers. If this works out and we get ‘em back, I guess I’ll have the biggest fish tale of all time to tell him instead. Whatever’s not classified, anyway, because he’ll tell it to everybody he knows.”

Bruce joined us and we passed the time, thankful for each other’s company, and for once with no crisis more extreme than Scott dropping his last taco in surprise when the Benatar swooped down like a giant prehistoric bird and landed out back. I sent them in to eat, while Bruce shared his lunch with Scott, and Scott sternly ordered the ants creeping up on my seltzer to fall back. (We had taken his stories of being able to communicate with insects with a grain of salt, but nothing opened your eyes like watching a column of ants make a 180 and walk off, with the lead dog clearly stomping in a tiny fit of pique.)

Bruce said he had been talking to Brunhilde. “From what she says, Thor’s in a real funk,” he said. “We need him here, before we act on anything we’re putting together—we want the whole team’s input, obviously, and he should be a part. He won’t talk to us, though. She did everything short of pulling the plug on his video games. Rocket and I, we’re thinking about hopping the pond to try to talk to him face to face. Haven’t seen New Asgard, either, and we both want to see Angry Girl again, and Miek and Korg too.”

Rhodey landed just then, and said Clint would be in tonight; he was making a ‘quick side trip’. Probably checking on his farm, I figured, and tried not to imagine Clint wandering around the silent house where Laura and the kids had been. “Guys,” I asked after Rhodey left to ditch his suit and grab some grub, “are you close? You haven’t said, and I didn’t want to poke my nose in and risk getting it singed, but…the team’s gathering.”

“We’re close,” Bruce nodded. “Just need a few more tweaks to the platform and the big board, and you know Tony’s still working on the helmets…but yeah, time to start making a plan.”

The oppressive quiet was broken by the faint squeal of tires as Tony pulled up and jumped out of his car, every line of his body screaming of excitement. “You won’t believe what I found,” he said. “Okay, maybe you will, cornbread, you know me too well. I wasn’t paying attention to FRIDAY’s directions, and Steve was going all Easy Rider and following me back, and maybe I zigged instead of zagged—but clearly it was meant to be, kismet, karma, koo koo ka choo, whatever—”

The roar of Steve’s motorcycle drowned his enthusiastic babble out. Steve pulled up and dismounted with a familiar expression, the _Tony my friend I love you but you are nuts_ look. “He just bought a house,” he said, shaking his head. 

“He what?” Rhodey joined us with tacos in hand. 

“Not a house! Just a cabin. On the other side of the lake, someplace—over there—thataway.” Tony waved his hand then snagged one of Rhodey’s tacos. 

“It’s not a cabin,” Steve mouthed to us.

“It’s a cabin,” Tony insisted while he chewed. “Small. Cozy. What’s that Scandinavian thing Pep says? Hygge. She’s gonna love it, it’s perfect. It’s rustic as fuck, great for her coffers of compost. Far enough from here I can’t blow it up, close enough I can sleep in a real actual bed with my real actual fiancée at night.”

Rhodey took offense to that, and pointed out Tony was the one who bought the mattresses and every dang thing else here. They were still bickering like an old married couple as they went in, trailed by Bruce and Steve still shaking his head and openly laughing now. Scott shook his head too. “Starting to wonder if I’m in the right place,” he remarked. “That’s definitely not any Stark Hank ever described to me.”

“From all I’ve heard, Howard Stark wanted a mini-me,” I said. “What he got, obviously, was anything but. Too damn bad for him, good for the rest of us. Once this mess is cleaned up, Hank will have to meet Tony and find that out for himself.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I hope so…” I knew that distance that stretched in Scott’s eyes now. I saw it often, when I looked in the mirror. He hadn’t said, and nobody had asked that I knew of, but the mysterious Hope whose loss had left him stranded in the Quantum Realm was likely more than just his backup. I had an idea that being without her left him as off-balance as being without Bucky did me.

(Spoiler alert: Steve was right. It was not a cabin.)


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Experiments are successful, and the Avengers meet to formulate a plan.

Tony was right, Pepper did love the house by the lake. Considering the things he’s bought her before that were, shall we say, not appropriate (though he tried, Lord knows he did), I was thrilled to see it. While his idea seemed to be just for her to be nearer while the time heist project was completed, everything Pep said and did while moving in pointed to her wanting to make it their permanent home. She talked about planting berry bushes, and maybe getting some chickens; and she stole my breath when she asked if Bucky and I would like to put our own garden somewhere on the property. “Tony’s determined,” she said simply. “He’s going to get them all back. If he can’t do it, it can’t be done.” 

Pep planned to work from home, Happy was driving up every few days, and Tony asked Harley to stay at the tower. For a contact person, one might think he could have done better than a teenage prodigy who was too prone to blowing things up…wait, never mind, that’s exactly who one would expect Tony to pick, isn’t it? Harley wanted to get his hands on the time heist tech, but Tony somehow persuaded him he was needed more in the city. May needed him, and Ned, and the R&D crew he had taken command of; and even at half strength, NYC was like a candy store for a kid from a little town in east Tennessee whose biggest claim to fame was a nearby cast iron skillet factory. 

Bruce and Rocket went on their mission to persuade Thor to join our conspiracy of hope, and returned with him in tow. He didn’t look convinced or happy about it, at least not at first. Brunhilde had not exaggerated the extent of his obvious depression, or his heavy drinking. He was—not fat, but soft, his body that a man who had let himself go because he didn’t care anymore. He brought Stormbreaker, but the huge ax hung from his hand like a stoned over-the-hill rocker dragging a pawn-shop guitar, heedless of its condition or his. Rocket showed off the rig the science squad was building, though, and Scott explained the theory behind it (as well as he could, while trying not to fanboy again), and slowly, I saw the light start to come back into Thor’s eyes. He started to believe it was possible, and as he said, if it didn’t work, at least we wouldn’t have to say we didn’t try. When Tony got the last bugs pounded out of the helmet setup, and made a prototype suit, we knew it was time for the nitty-gritty—a trial run. There wasn’t a limitless supply of the Pym particles that ran the quantum jumps, so every use had to count. Scott got cold feet, and Clint volunteered to be the test pilot. I couldn’t help but wonder if it was because his hope was so strong, or because he figured, like Thor, he’d rather die trying.

He didn’t die, just came back unnerved and clutching his son’s baseball glove. So, once the shrieks of celebration died down, it was time for the talk, the plan for exactly how to obtain six more Infinity Stones. First, Bruce had to explain to those who hadn’t been in earlier convocations the rationale behind why changing our past would not change our present, only split off another timeline. That made Rhodey grumpy, because his suggestion had been to go way back and far away and kill Thanos before he even went off the rails and got the notion to save the universe’s ecology by wiping out half its inhabitants. (He was already grumpy that he couldn’t get hold of Carol, but she had warned us she was going to be even busier as time went on, having to put out fires all over at least two galaxies; so this caper was ours to own.)

The easiest option for obtaining stones seemed, at least at first glance, to be sending one person to one place and time. Thor made that point, quite forcefully. “Thanos had them all, in Wakanda,” he argued. “I go there, I go for the head. He taunted me with the knowledge, I use it to end him.”

“There is no certainty that would work,” Nebula surprised everybody by pointing out. “He never lied that I know of, this is true, but I have seen him recover from grievous head wounds. Striking him down in the midst of battle, when he is on guard and at the height of his power—it is too risky. You would have one shot only. If you missed, he would slay you immediately.”

“I could just go for the arm, then,” Thor countered. “Take him by surprise, take the stones and bam, I’m away.”

“Ew,” Scott grimaced. “I’m not that kind of criminal,” he added at Clint’s incredulous look his way.

“Then he’d be warned.” Bruce shook his head, playing with his glasses. “Whatever universe, or universes, we take the Stones from, they need to be put back to keep those, what’d you say the wizard called ‘em, Tony, dead-end timelines from happening? They have to go back to exactly where and when they were taken. Now, who’s gonna go back and practically hand ‘em back to Thanos? Let him use ‘em to do to that verse what he did to ours?”

Tony nodded, his mouth twisted in distaste. “Valid point, green bean,” he said to Bruce. “Knowing we fixed our world with them—logically, for all his big talk about balance, the one thing he’d do then is make damn sure he killed every single Avenger with a quickness, before they came up with the same gambit.” He paced around the room, swirling his mostly-empty coffee cup. “On the other hand…If we took them from various spots, before he ever got his hands on them, and returned them to the exact places and times, at least we’d give our alt-selves in those timelines a fighting chance.”

“Could we destroy them afterwards?” Nat wanted to know as she busily made notes. “That way the Thanoses of those universes would never be able to amass the whole set, and never be able to try what he did here.”

“Dunno,” Tony said. “Strange wouldn’t hear of that, but then, he was pretty possessive of his little chunk of kryptonite. We don't know what's gonna happen to us here, with our verse's Stones destroyed, and I don't know that we want to do that to other universes."

The next couple of days, various small groups put their heads together to work out where the various stones were before Thanos took possession of them. Nebula and Rocket, naturally, knew the most about space, and two of the stones had been out there. Thor floored everybody by telling how one had actually been concealed in the body of Jane, his ex, for a while. And Nat took the grand prize when she summoned everybody to point out that the other three stones were all in New York, in 2012. “Shut the front door!” Bruce burst out.

“Six stones, three teams, then," Steve said. “One can get the Soul and Power stones off-earth, one gets the Reality Stone in Asgard, and one goes to New York to get the other three. Nobody goes alone,” he cautioned before any eager beavers (ahem, _Tony_ ) even proposed it, and with that, assignments began. Thor was a logical choice to go to Asgard, and Rocket stepped up to accompany him; being small and sneaky, he could get in where others couldn’t. Nebula had been to the planet Morag, where the Power stone had been hidden, and Rhodey volunteered to partner her. Natasha was itching to go back to space, and Clint hadn’t been, and nobody would bet against the two of them together getting literally anything in the universe done; so they would drop Nebula and Rhodey off, then go to another planet, Vormir, where according to Nebula’s sister, the Soul stone had been hidden, and get it before Thanos could.

Tony put together a plan for New York; he, Steve and Scott would go after Loki’s scepter containing the Mind Stone, and the Tesseract, while Bruce tracked the past version of Strange down and borrowed the Time Stone. I listened carefully, since as usual, if anything went awry, I’d have to formulate an explanation fit for public consumption. The more I heard, though, the more I realized they were overlooking something very important. “Y’all,” I interrupted while Tony was showing Scott how he could flick him across a room in ant-size form, like shooting a paper football. “You’re missing something. Cameras. Press cameras, to be exact. TV coverage was all over New York when the Chitauri attack was going on. If the whole point of structuring the caper this way is to stay on the down-low, you can’t very well let one get pointed your way, or people will freak out wondering why there are two Caps or Iron Men.”

“Shit,” Tony said. “You’re right. We have to be aware where those are and stay out of their lines of sight.”

“How are we gonna do that, though,” Steve added, “when we were there fighting, not watching the coverage? We don’t…” He slowed when I just looked at him. “You know, don’t you Chris? I remember you said you and Pepper saw the whole thing.” 

I nodded. “We did, and I remember like I watched it all yesterday.” This was not what I had expected would come out of my mouth in this room in front of these people, but it was what had to come out. “I think I need to go with you. I can spot the angles and you can plan your routes around them. I can go with Bruce—you just said nobody should have to go alone, Steve, and I think I know Strange better than him, besides, so I might be helpful to mediate.”

Scott’s mouth opened and closed a couple of times in the silence that followed. “Um, nothing personal, you’re good at what you do and better than nearly any other reporter I’ve ever met, but watching the Chitauri thing on the news doesn’t qualify you to go into it.” He looked around the room, searching for some backup, I imagined. “Does it? Am I wrong here? Do we want to take civilians along, because if so I can call a couple of my—”

“Not civilian.” The words didn’t surprise me. The person they came from did, just a bit. Rhodey gave me a small smile and a quick nod, before he returned his attention to Scott and continued. “You wouldn’t know; only a few people outside this room do, and we intend for it to stay that way, but Chrissy’s got a…little something extra going for her. Suffice it to say, she isn’t gonna need protection any more than the rest of us would.” 

“I hate when you’re right, platypus,” Tony grumbled, “and it’s worse when you and cornbread gang up on me.” I made a kissy face at him. “At least if you go on my team I can keep an eye on you.”

“Get real, hot rod. More than likely it’ll be the other way around,” I retorted.

At Scott’s still dubious look, I drew on Extremis to shape a couple of small fireballs. I considered tooting my own horn and demonstrating one of my new tricks, but decided against it. Scott looked like he might stroke out as it was, and I couldn’t bring myself to freak him out any more than that. As I tossed the glowing balls from hand to hand, though, his shaken demeanor started giving way to fascination. “I’ve got to know how that works,” he said. “Can you juggle those? I can teach you.”

I gave him a brief backstory after the meeting broke up, and he promised to show me how to juggle once the heist was done and everyone was back in place. I liked that thought (and did not hurt his feelings by telling him Clint had already offered, back in Wakanda), but I shied away from thinking about everything it was going to take to get there. Volunteering had not been on my mind, far from it, but I hadn’t been able to help stop Thanos before. Now, I had the power I hadn’t asked for under control, and I could help mend the damage done to our world in this way. If—when—the game was won, and Bucky came home, I wanted him to see that I had listened to him, I wasn’t using a crutch, and I wasn’t afraid. I had owned my fierce.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy gets an unexpected gift and makes her final preparations for the time heist.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Here in the US we have another layer of Bad Things layered on top of the previous bunch of layers. To my American readers, take care of yourselves and do all the good you can. I'm doing both as well as I can. Part of taking care of yourself is stepping away from RL for a while, for me, and maybe for you too. Hence, I plan to continue writing and posting, and I hope that my little verse gives you a place to slip off to.

“Thanks for backing me up,” I told Tony later, in the staging area in the hangar, where the time heist rig was getting its final adjustments. 

He shrugged, his focus on assembling parts of a gauntlet that resembled part of an Iron Man suit, except for six slots, one for each stone. ”You’re not a helpless plantation belle swanning around with your fan and your hoopskirt. No need to treat you like you are.”

I smiled and shut up to watch him work. “Nanotech?”

“Naturally.” He held his breath, his tongue tip poking out, as he made some tiny tweaks. 

“It’s right-handed,” I noticed then. “Thanos wore his on his left. Why right?”

Another shrug answered me. “Just felt right.”

Bruce walked over to peer at the order emerging from the chaos on the workbench. “In many metaphysical traditions, the left side is the receptive, the right the expressive. Left takes—” He put out his left hand, closed it into a fist and pulled it back. “—right gives.” Suiting action to words again, he extended his right arm, closed hand opening.

“I like it,” I grinned. “What Thanos took, God willing, we can give back.”

“Why,” Tony remarked with a little grin, “does it surprise me exactly none that you knew that, oh great guru?” He straightened from his position bent over his work, with a small grunt. “But there’ll be no prejudice against southpaws in my shop. Remember, I swing both ways.” He waggled both hands’ fingers.

“Only you could make being ambidextrous sound dirty, Tony,” Bruce chuckled.

“It is dirty! There was this one time, me and these twins—”

“Not listening!” I covered my ears with my hands. That held for a couple of seconds before Tony pulled my hands down and towed me to another workspace.

“What’s your plan for gear?” he asked. “Hard for you to run around bombed-out Manhattan with the mother of all toothpicks strapped across your back, and be inconspicuous.”

“I’ll wear my workout suit, under some of the street clothes Shuri designed for me, in case I have to break Extremis out, heaven forbid. Wearing the harness too, I think. Shuri put some extra armoring in it, and it fits close enough it will go under a casual top. No mambele, though, you’re right about that. Can’t exactly trot around with that, even in a city under siege.”

I paused, considering telling him about the Extremis-sword I had learned to fashion, but before I did, he said, “Glad you agree. I put a little something-something together for you, if you like it.” With that, Tony handed me what looked like a pen case, round and a little longer than my hand was wide. It was lightweight and a gorgeous rose-gold metal. “Wrap your fingers around it and put your thumb in that divot,” he directed, “but don’t point it at me! Or yourself, or anybody you don’t want to do damage to.”

Following his instructions, I gulped when instead of opening it unfolded. In seconds, I was holding a sword with a wickedly sharp leaf-shaped blade, shimmering in the ceiling lights. “Tony! I—how—what the—”

“Haven’t given you much,” he said modestly. “Figured something functional might be appreciated.” I swept it around, testing its weight and balance. “I invoked your name to get some vibranium out of Princess Tiana. Did a mashup with the gold-titanium from my suits and just enough copper to get that color you’re so crazy about. Oh, I finally figured out why the watch gauntlet wouldn’t work consistently for you, by the way. It was Extremis—probably the excess energy in your body was shorting it out when you wore it for any length of time. This’ll fold up, pop into your briefcase or whatever, looks like something a quality journalist would carry.”

“I put in my two credits’ worth on the folding mechanism,” Rocket added. I’d been so absorbed in the blade I hadn’t noticed the rest of the science squad join us. “Light ‘er up, fireball, let’s make sure the ‘genius’ didn’t make something that melts down like Belorian bug-wax.”

With a step or two back to get clear space, I called Extremis and set the slim blade on fire. “How’s it feel?” Bruce asked with obvious excitement.

“Great. The grip is cool, and nothing’s dripping.”

“I count that as a total win, then,” he grinned and exchanged high-fives with Tony, and low-fives with Rocket. 

Scott was agog. “We got any marshmallows?” he asked at last.

I doused the flame and Tony showed me how to collapse the sword back into its deceptive casing. “You didn’t have to do this, hot rod,” I said and hugged him. “Though it is awesome.”

“Heh. I wanted to make you a suit, but it’s hard to beat vibranium, and I do not want Shuri to sprout claws, when Bruce works out the heart-shaped herb thing, and go all feral that i presumed to try to improve on her tech. Glad you like the toothpick, though. Beats a little model car, huh?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You still have that thing?”

“Of course I do. It’s back in my apartment in the tower. Bucky…he always liked it. He said he hated he never got to see the full-sized one, before your house in Malibu took a dive.” I bit my lip, hit by one of those bursts of longing for my lover that rose without warning. “He’s never been here, you know,” I added, looking out the window at the woods, wild and welcoming but still too quiet.

He busied himself with piecing together bits of tech. “You need to bring him up here, once the place is cleaned up,” he said after a minute. “Looks more like off-campus housing than training ground for superheroes, right now.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, then turned my attention back to my lovely new toy. “This is so wonderful, Tony. Thank you. It means more to me than a present. Like…you accept me, the way I am now.”

“As if you ever doubted that!” he scoffed while he fiddled with some wiring in the back of the control panel that tomorrow would hopefully send us on an unimaginable journey. “Got to make sure the women in my life can take care of themselves. Pep tell you she’s been working out with Rescue?” I nodded. “She’s getting good, too. It sets my mind at rest. I’m getting too damn old to be running around the galaxy playing Crimson Dynamo. Figured you and I would retire at the same time, but you went and got juiced. You’ll probably live to be two hundred.”

“Not a chance,” I scoffed, as Tony went to the floor and handed me a coil of wiring to hold while he paid it into the console. “Shuri ran genetic testing looking specifically into whether Extremis was extending my life. It’s helping; the telomeres on my chromosomes, I think she said, are shortening a little slower than usual, so I will likely live a little longer than I might otherwise have, but not anything ridiculous. Long enough to be Aunt Chrissy to your and Pep’s kids, definitely.”

Tony didn’t answer, his head now buried in the bowels of the equipment. “Only thing that bothers me,” he said suddenly and pulled out and back to glare up at me, “about you going, I mean, is, if this goes south—pardon the term, not meant to be a slur, but if it does—and we all get vaporized or eaten by a business of space ferrets or something, nobody’ll be left to tell what happened. It’ll just be, the Avengers vanished, one day. Maybe they packed up and split town, left earth to fend for itself.”

“No, they won’t,” I said. “I’ve got that covered.” I did not, but he was right, I needed to. His eyes searched mine, then with a curt nod he pulled himself back to his feet. “I do need to go get some more of my actual work done before I hit the sack though. You are not staying here all night, are you?”

“Of course not!” Tony managed to look slightly appalled. “I’m roughing it and pretending to enjoy it. Potts is waiting along with nice high thread count sheets. I’ve, ah, got a couple more programs to wind down, some notes to record for future reference, then I’m gone like the wind.”

“Good.” I hugged him one more time. “See you in the morning.”

“Yeah. Yeah, see you then. Hey! Ratchet! Is that my screwdriver?...you like it, huh? Behave yourself and maybe I’ll leave it to you in my will…”

That sent a shiver down my spine—it reminded me entirely too much of Tony giving things away when he was certain he was about to die from palladium poisoning. I worked the tension out with one more quick practice session, in my street clothes, in the training space. After weeks, I figured out I could use the same blasts of hot air that lifted me to knock somebody else off their feet. Why it took me so long, I have no clue. Put it down to not being born to the superhero life, maybe. It was a welcome realization, though, to know that if I ever needed a weapon that wouldn’t fry its target, I had discovered one.

With that bit of reassurance, I adjourned to my compound quarters and set to work. First, I called Tennessee to touch base with my kinfolks. It was all very friendly, and _yes, I’m okay, how are y’all doing_ ; at least, it was until Avonelle got on the line. Like an idiot, I thought I could keep the looming shadow to myself. “What’s happenin’ up there, girl?” she said, cutting off my stream of small talk. 

“Happening? Nothing more than what the whole planet is dealing with. Why?”

“Pshaw. You’re wound up tighter’n a two dollar watch. Tell me what’s goin’ on.”

Somehow, I had forgotten that my great-auntie could read me like a supermarket tabloid. “It’s just—the team has an idea, they’re working on it now, and going to try it out in the morning. If it works, it might help everybody, a lot, but it’s sketchy. I’m going to help out, and I’m just…”

“A tad nervous,” she finished.

“A tad,” I agreed. “Pray for us, please?”

“I will that, rest assured. You better get yourself back down here, when that’s all done and dusted, and bring that young man of yours. I expect to meet him before I die. Use the sense the good Lord give you, honey, and you’ll be fine.”

Right then, I wasn’t sure I still had the sense the good Lord gave a goose, but I promised just the same. With my mind turned irretrievably toward the morrow, I hit the assignment Tony had inadvertently presented me with, at full speed. I wrote up a brief summary of what the team had been working on, without going into too much detail, just that a scientific experiment had led to the development of a venture with hopes of obtaining the resources needed to reverse the Snap and bring back the people Thanos had obliterated. Once I had the words I wanted in their places, I enlisted FRIDAY’s help to pull up the holoconferencing suite and put it in recording mode. 

As the sky outside turned to dusk, I read the statement aloud, as though I was recording a press release. I ended, however, with, “This message is set to be delivered and released unless I delete it, which I will do immediately if this endeavor is successful. So, if you are watching this, then something went wrong, and the Avengers who survived the Snap…are gone. I’m helping in a small way with the project, so I’m gone too, in that event. Obviously, the team hopes this never gets seen, but if it does, they want everybody to know that they did all they could to put things right, and they’re sorry they couldn’t do more.”

With that done, I attached it to an email and typed a quick note to Pepper asking her to post it to AvengersOnline and the social media accounts if the need arose. ::No, I didn’t tell you I was going on the ‘time heist’. I didn’t plan to go, until it hit me that the intel in my head was something they needed. As usual, I think Tony is the only one who doubts his work, but I promised him I’d have something in place in case—you know. In case. So Lord willing, you will never read this. If you do, though, just know you being my friend made my life so much better. I love you, sis.::

I locked it and set the send date for forty-eight hours hence, just to be on the safe side, but then I had another thought. Tony had focused on a statement in the event of the heist misfiring, and I had that possibility covered; but what if it worked, and we were able to reverse the snap, but something else went awry, something we hadn’t even guessed at? “FRI, fire up the holorecorder one more time please?” Once it was running, I began, “Bucky. Hey, hon. I…know you are probably really mad, if you are watching this, because that means something's happened to me, and I—kind of want to apologize? You know what I believe, that death is not the end, and that being the case, a part of me should probably not be liking the idea of dragging you back here when you might be in heaven right now. You might be mad at me about that too, like in Buffy the Vampire Slayer; but after all the hard work you put into getting your life back, by God I’m not about to lay down and let that piece of shit Thanos take it from you without all the fight I can put up in every possible way. 

“You know I’m not afraid of dying, but you also know I’m in no hurry to. I want to be with you! But…should that not be what is meant to be, just know that I wanted you to be proud of me, and I believe one way or another we will see each other again.” I put all I had into staying calm, and managed an ironic laugh. “Truth be known, I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill. I believe in Tony’s mind and his will, maybe more than he does, and I know he will do everything under the sun to make this scheme work. Wish you could’ve seen them setting this enterprise up. Hey, I wonder if that all got recorded. Your pal Rocket’s been pulling his weight and then some…Anyway, I’m trusting it to the Almighty, and I pray tomorrow’ll end with me in your arms again. I love you so much, Bucky Barnes, and no matter what goes down, know I wouldn’t trade a minute we spent together for another hundred years of life without you.”

I stopped the recording and sent it to JARVIS, with a request that he notify Bucky of its existence if I didn’t make it back, but the snapped people did. That last end tied up, I went to bed, certain I would not sleep a wink. The stress must have done a number on me though, more than I thought, because I was out almost as soon as J cut the lights and my head hit the pillow. The next thing I knew, it was morning, one more morning far too quiet. With a prayer in my heart that this would be the last of those mornings that Earth would see, that all the birds and animals and people taken from us would be reclaimed, I suited up, pulled pants and a blouse on over my gear, and slipped Tony’s gift into a purse I could sling across my body. I sat down to run through the Avengers’ social media one more time and posted a brief cheery note: ::The team is busy, and I’m helping out, so the accounts will be quiet today—but hopefully we may have some news for you soon!::

I closed the browser and took a long look at my StarkPad’s wallpaper, a picture Pepper had taken of Bucky and me at a team cookout on the roof of the tower. In one corner, the calendar helpfully reminded me that today was seven months to the day since the last time I had seen my beloved. That was seven months too long. Suddenly possessed by determination, I shut the tech down and headed for the hangar. I had an Infinity Stone to help retrieve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce is right about the right-left dichotomy in mystical thought, and I've wondered ever since seeing Endgame if somebody on the writing team knew that too. 
> 
> Chrissy's sword, when folded, looks like the pen case on the far left of this picture: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/b4/a6/da/b4a6da473fb3c0ee2bc686f045af6199.jpg
> 
> In the 616 comics Marvelverse, Crimson Dynamo is a Russian version of Iron Man and a running enemy of Tony's. In my verse, he's also a comic book character, probably some artist's unofficial knockoff of the RL Iron Man. lol
> 
> As I"ve mentioned in comments to some recent chapters, a five-year time gap was out of the question for me all along. Specifically, the time lapse of seven months to the day, in the Wordsmith verse, between Thanos' snap and the day the Avengers struck back was deliberately chosen by me as a shout-out to an Endgame fix written MONTHS before Endgame, which is still one of my all-time fave fics period: Lazarus, Come Forth, by iron_spider. https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183011


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The time heist begins!

The main hangar was a kicked-over anthill of activity. Avengers were bustling all around making last-minute adjustments and gathering bits of gear. When Tony spied me, he pulled me into the designated area he called the ‘dressing room’. Setting his coffee aside, he rummaged through a case of wristbands and handed me one. “Special insulation on that one, so Sparky Sparky Boom doesn’t short it out and leave you stuck in 2012 dancing with yourself.” A chill swept over me and made my hair sit up. “Hey! It’s Stark tech, for fucks’ sake, it’s golden. Anyway, I’d come back for you if you got stranded, cornbread. We’re not gonna leave anybody hanging out to dry.”

“You say so, but Scott said there weren’t many extra Pym particles. Just enough to get this mission done,” I pointed out as I put the wristlet on.

“There’d be enough to get you back.” Tony’s voice and face got that stubborn quality, like a mule planting its hooves and refusing to be moved. I did not want special treatment, but at the same time I loved him for caring that much. 

“I’ll just have to make sure that’s not needed,” I smiled at him. “Now show me how this puppy works.” He did, and the quantum suit curved around my body and over my clothes, the helmet encasing my head in a protective nano-shell. As terrifying as the prospect before me was, a part of me still wanted to jump up and down and squeal with elation. Even Extremis seemed thrilled, as much as a virus could be I guess; a sensation like carbonation bubbled beneath my skin. I reversed the procedure Tony had just demonstrated and doffed the helmet. “Whew. Okay. I’m about to time travel. Me, Chrissy from Carroll County.” I gave Tony a breathless grin. “C’mon, hot rod, the TARDIS awaits!”

Thankfully, judging from other faces, I wasn’t the only one pulled between anxiety and excitement. By ones and twos, the team finished their preparations, and the gabble of animated conversation stilled. Steve led the way across the hangar and up the skeletal steps to the launch platform—it felt like stepping onto a stage, though no audience was here to see us. The round platform contained pads for each traveler, and we took our places in the circle, except Bruce, who halted at the control board. He was already in Hulk-form, since, as he said, he really didn’t want to either pack a change of clothes, or subject us all to seeing him naked under his quantum suit.

My spot was between Steve and Nat. I gazed around at the heroes who surrounded me, my friends, suited up and ready to go, then down at myself in the same white uniform with the silver Avengers A on the breast. Steve held his gloved fist out, and everyone else followed for a quick fist bump (poor Rocket had to almost stand on his toes to join in). In his free hand, Clint held the _Benatar_ , shrunk small enough to hang from a necklace.

“Seven months ago,” Steve said, looking around at us, “we lost. All of us, we lost friends, family... part of ourselves. Today, we have a chance to take it all back. This is the fight of our lives. And we're gonna win. Whatever it takes.”

“You stole one of my best lines,” Tony joked weakly.

Steve smiled. “You know your teams, you know your missions. Get the stones, get ‘em back. One round trip each. No mistakes. No do-overs. Most of us are going somewhere we know, but it doesn't mean we know what to expect. Be careful. Look out for each other. Good luck.” 

“You’re pretty good at that,” Rocket snarked at him, and then called across the circle to Clint, “You promise to bring my ship back in one piece, right?” 

“Yeah, yeah, I'll do my best.”

Rocket crossed his arms and looked thoroughly unimpressed. “As promises go, that was pretty lame.” It did serve to lighten the mood a little bit, though, until Tony called for Bruce to start the launch sequence. He set the timer, then hustled onto the platform to join us. 

Nat looked almost as excited as I felt. She reached over and clasped my hand quickly. “See you in a minute,” she said with a grin.

“Remember, you’re only getting the stone,” I kidded. “Don’t let Clint talk you into bringing home any weird-ass aliens to adopt.”

“I resemble that remark,” Rocket grunted. 

Scott activated his helmet and the rest of us followed suit. _Let’s do this thing_ , I thought. _God, go with us._

The next moment, the energy array beneath our feet burst to life, blazing as though we were inside a giant fireball. A low throb vibrated through my body like the bass at a concert, then beyond, until I felt lifted off my feet, up and up. I had time for one frantic thought that I might slam right into the high ceiling of the hangar, before the flare exploded into rainbow light that illuminated what seemed to be a tunnel, I barreled down its length head first, and out of my peripheral vision, I saw other forms doing likewise. For a beat, two, we soared past impossible structures in wild configurations; then I felt myself being pulled to one side, like the current of a body of water does, and aimed toward another blinding light. It grew and grew, enveloping me, then winked out for a heart-stopping instant of utter nothingness.

The next breath, I was surrounded by clamor, the noise of battle and sunlight choked by smoke. I felt a hard surface under my feet and bent my knees to land: concrete, with an overturned automobile nearby. A glance around showed me a city alleyway; another glance showed my teammates safely landed beside me. Tony and Scott were already out of their suits, and Bruce and Steve were following suit. _It worked_ , I thought, _it fucking worked_. We had gone back, to New York, 2012, in the middle of the Avengers’ first action as a team, the day I had first met them. 

A corner of me wanted to scream up to the heavens where another me was on a plane with Pepper, watching the chaos unfold—or maybe she wasn’t. The Christine of Deuce’s universe was a nasty unkind piece of work, after all. Who knew what this one had done. She might be on that jet, or she might have taken the TV anchor gig, she could still be chasing C-list celebrities around SoCal for Vanity Fair, or maybe she gave up and went back to west Tennessee.

None of that mattered. I was here, and I had a job to do. That didn’t stop me from planting a quick kiss on Tony’s cheek. “You beautiful fucking genius,” I enthused.

“You rang?” he preened.

Steve’s quantum suit retraced to reveal his old uniform. He held his shield close and moved cautiously to the alley opening to peer out onto the nearest main cross-street. “I think I recognize this area,” he began. I stepped up beside him and took in the landmarks and street signage—well, what was left of it—and started to point out a couple of locations I remembered seeing camera shots during the height of the combat. 

An ear-splitting roar interrupted me. We darted backward, just as the Hulk, his face twisted in rage, charged a Chitauri fighter. The big green guy scooped up a fallen car and hurled it at the enemy with a snarl, grabbed a loose wheel and downed another attacker with that, then took a few jumps on the whole assemblage for good measure. Bruce hid his face in embarrassment. I tried not to giggle out loud. Steve paused, and I could almost see his brain cells run to regroup. “You were saying, Chris?” he finally got out. Swiftly I repeated the points I remembered, and reminded them to watch for actual cameras and not waste time looking for cell phones shooting video (even StarkPhones wouldn’t be that good for another year or two). “All right,” Steve said when I finished, “we all have our assignments. Two stones uptown, one stone down. Stay low. Keep an eye on the clock. Oh, and Bruce, feel free to smash a few things along the way.”

Bruce glared. “I think it's gratuitous, but whatever.”

“Aw, c’mon,” I teased, “think of it as getting your cardio in for the day.”

If it was possible to smash vehicles with a sarcastic air, Bruce definitely did it, grumbling under his breath most of the way down and across Manhattan Island to Greenwich Village. I didn’t want to risk calling attention to an unknown ‘hero’, even amid the fog of battle, so I hoped I wouldn’t have to pull out Extremis on anything. Thankfully, my hopes were realized. I thought I might have to heave a fireball or two at a Chitauri, but a quick duck let them pass unnoticed. I was able to just run alongside Bruce on his faux rampage, with my mildly enhanced speed making it relatively easy to keep up.

Faster than I had expected, we neared the brownstone on Bleeker Street that housed the Sanctum of the Master of the Mystic Arts. “So what’s the play?” I asked while we jogged through the deserted streets. “I know Strange better than you do, sure, but at this point in time, he doesn’t know me. Going up and knocking on the door may not bear much weight.”

“I’m thinking maybe take another angle,” Bruce replied as the building came into view. “Drop in from the top.” He gestured toward the structure next door, that looked to be just a few feet taller. “I can probably hold onto you and jump to the roof."

“I’m sure you can, but…” I eyeballed the elevation when we stopped. “Let me try something. Can you spot me, and maybe catch me if I miss?”

“Considering I have no idea what you’re planning, I will do my best.” 

I rolled my eyes at his typical dry wit, then motioned him back a few steps. With a moment to brace myself, I aimed my palms downward and behind me, and hit the already cracked pavement underfoot with a brief blast of Extremis-fueled hot air. It sent me off the ground at what I hoped was the right angle to peak above the neighbor building. When I spied the gravel of the flat roof, I flipped one palm up and released another little pop of flame that directed me downward. The surface racing up toward my feet gave me an instant of panic, but I reminded myself Tony had said his first good flight in Iron Man had been when he was so excited he forgot to be scared. My other palm still faced down and I let off one more burst to slow me to a more controlled drop. With all that, I still stumbled and nearly skinned my knees like a grade-schooler, but I landed, and in one piece at that. I leaned over the narrow parapet that ran around the roof, and waved down to an open-mouthed Bruce. _Yeah,_ I thought with barely reined exuberance, _I can fly._

He joined me in one big green leap, and we turned our focus to our target next door. The smaller hop there took even more control, I found, but it worked, and we both caught our breath on the Sanctum’s roof. The only exit appeared to be a small brown set of double doors that looked firmly shut. I didn’t know how to pick locks, and I really didn’t want Bruce to have to break anything, but he was limbering his fingers as if ready to pull them apart. 

“I'd be careful going that way,” a clear voice called. “We just had the floors waxed.” The snarky words spun me around, to face a slim bald woman in simple saffron robes. She didn’t look young, but she didn’t look old either, and she seemed supremely calm considering the explosions in the distance where the Avengers of this timeline still battled the alien invaders.

Bruce was taken aback too. “Um… Ma'am, we’re looking for Doctor Strange.”

“You're about two years too early. Stephen Strange is currently performing surgery about twenty blocks that way.” She cocked her head uptown. “What is it you want from him?” Her tone was mildly curious, but she moseyed casually across the roof toward a little potting bench, and my eye instantly picked out a couple dozen things that would make great weapons if she felt threatened. Then again, she was here, at the Sanctum, which meant she had to at least be a sorcerer of Master Wong’s level, so heaving a garden fork at us wasn't exactly her only option.

She turned to face Bruce and her steps set something moving, something that hung around her neck: the Eye of Agamotto, the locket that held the Time Stone. This then must be the current Sorcerer Supreme, Strange’s predecessor. If he wasn’t here, I was less needed, so I took a step back to stay out of the way. Bruce saw the pendant at the same time, and pointed toward it. “That, actually.”

The sorcerer glanced down and almost laughed. “Ah, I'm afraid not.”

“Sorry, but I wasn't asking,” Bruce retorted.

“You don’t want to do this,” she warned.

“You’re right, I don't.” He started toward her “But we need that stone, and we don't have time to—”

“Bruce?” I hesitated, unsure whether to intervene. Before I could decide, the woman thrust her hand toward Bruce. He lurched backward and fell, and that decided me; I understood her alarm, but I wasn’t about to let her hurt my friend either. I rushed toward her, ducking to miss whatever energy, something like mine apparently, such a small person had used to take down the Hulk, and lifting my hands to fire upward, to at least down her long enough to check on Bruce.

She flung one arm in a fan-shaped motion that sparked with the golden light I remembered from Strange’s spells and blocked my blast. Her other hand contacted me and though she barely pushed, I fell hard on my ass. The next moment, somehow, I was standing, several feet away, looking down at myself lying motionless. Those two data points added up to one inescapable conclusion. “Oh shit,” I breathed. “I’m dead. Bucky’s gonna kill me.” It wasn’t a surprise to find Bruce standing beside me, nor even that he appeared in his fully human form. “Oh Bruce, we blew it…”

He put an arm around me. “It’s gonna be okay, Chrissy, it is, c’mon. Don’t panic. Know where your towel is, okay?”

I had to laugh, even as tears filled my eyes—how that was happening with no body, who knew. “Don’t need a towel if we’re dead,” I mumbled.

“No!” The sorcerer approached, looking startled and oddly sympathetic. “No one is dead here. We stand in the Astral Dimension, in bodies of pure energy. Time, relative to the Material Plane, slows to a crawl.” She pointed to the horizon, where tendrils of smoke rose from battered buildings in midtown, now frozen in mid-drift in the air. “Thus, we may discuss our circumstances in a more rational manner. Your physical forms are sleeping, and I will return you when our conversation is done.” Her smile was reassuring, though still obviously wary. “So let’s start over, shall we?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bruce's towel line comes from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and weirdly enough, I wrote this scene on May 25, which Hitchhikers fans observe as Towel Day!


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce and Chrissy parlay with the Ancient One, and return with their prize. The other teams return, but one is late...

As I’d guessed, the woman, who said only that she went by the title of the Ancient One, was the current protector of the Time Stone and the Sanctum of New York. Even though we had barged into her home, she was nice enough to use her impressive magic to settle Bruce’s and my forms on comfortable-looking chaise longues while we weren’t using them. Bruce even rated her big floppy straw gardening hat to shade his Hulk-face.

I was still too unnerved to string together much of a sentence, so I perched beside our bodies. Bruce introduced us both and explained the situation our world was in. Despite our dire straits, she was not inclined to cooperate, no matter how he pleaded. “I'm sorry, I can't help you, Bruce. If I give up the Time Stone to help your Reality, I'm dooming my own.”

“With all due respect,” Bruce argued, “I'm not sure the science really supports that. Strange told us a lot about the basics of the Stones’ function, and we have a plan.”

A sweep of her hand conjured a long ray of shimmering magical energy. “Then you know that the Infinity Stones create what you experience as the flow of time.” A projection of the Stones appeared, rotating around the ray, as brightly colored as the ones Wong had conjured while giving us our first lessons on those terrible powerful things. “Remove one stone—” The Ancient One reached into the projection and plucked the image of the green stone, hers, out. “—and that flow splits.” From the gap, a black streak appeared, shooting off from the main line and up like a line on a graph. “Now, this may benefit your reality, but my new one—not so much. In this new branched Reality, without our chief weapon against the forces of darkness, our world will be overrun. Millions will suffer. So, tell me, Doctor, can your science prevent all that?”

“Yes!” Bruce shot back. “Well, no, not prevent, but erase. Once we’re done with the stones, we’re going to return each one to its own timeline at the moment it was taken. So, chronologically, in that reality, it’ll never have left!”

She shook her head. “You’re leaving out the most important part. In order to return the stones, you have to survive.”

“We will! I will. I promise.”

“I can't risk my Reality on a promise. It is my duty as the Sorcerer Supreme to protect the Time Stone—"

Frankly, as much as I could sympathize with the Ancient One’s wish to protect her verse, this dancing around needed to end. “Then why did Stephen give it away?” I snapped. 

I really had not wanted the formidable sorceress' attention back on me, but here it was. Her head fairly snapped around to face me where I sat. “What did you say?”

“He gave the Stone to Thanos.” I stood, my astral knees still shaky but my heart no longer willing to be cowed.

“Willingly? Why?”

“To save my brother’s life.” She looked totally at a loss, and I searched my memory for the term Nebula had used. “My heart-brother. You probably know of him. Tony Stark.”

She nodded slowly. This time Bruce backed off and let me lead, as I swiftly laid out, from Tony’s account and Nebula’s video, what we knew: Strange’s look into countless futures, his report that he had only found one where we saved our verse from ruin, and his final declarations. “Strange is meant to be the best of us,” she said reflectively when I finished. “For him to yield up the Time Stone, and then declare the start of the endgame—he must have had a reason.”

I nodded. “We—well, correction, _I_ have my suspicions. That’s all they are, for now, but it’s like what Tony taught me about flight. It’s easier to go with the flow when you feel something else more strongly than your fear.”

Her gaze on me was sharp now. “You I have not seen, Christine, in my own scrying into the future.”

“I don’t know what the me here is doing, so I don’t know that you would have,” I admitted. “And… I won’t say I was not meant to be a hero, because that decision was apparently made way above my pay grade. All I can say is that when I set out on my life journey, this definitely was not what I had in mind.”

“And yet here you are.” This time, the Ancient One’s smile seemed to hold some knowledge not being shared. Her hands flowed through the air, and I felt pulled, like the launch into the Quantum Realm; only this time, I was back in my own body in a moment. My neck was a little stiff, but otherwise, I felt as refreshed as if I’d had a decent nap. Bruce stirred too and snatched the hat off his face as he got to his wide green feet.

Again, her hands moved, this time in a gesture I remembered Strange doing, and the Eye opened, revealing the glow of the Time Stone inside. She removed it, held it up and looked at it for a long moment as though in contemplation, then held it out to Bruce. It hovered between her fingers, not even in her grip. “Thank you,” he said, quietly, almost reverently, and his big hand closed around the tiny thing.

“I'm counting on you, Bruce. We all are.”

Bruce looked down at his pants. “No pockets,” he griped, and proceeded to hand me the damned Stone. 

I gulped, and tucked it into my bag, to the Ancient One’s evident amusement. “You honor us with your trust,” I told her in all sincerity.

“It’s myself I’m trusting, really; trusting that in your world, I made the right choice in Strange. Tell your brother to move with care. Time flows, and the stones do as they will, and not always as we think we see them doing. As for you, your truest weapon is not that which you bear at your side, but that which you bear within. Not even by the fire in your veins, but by your mind and heart, will you preserve those you love.”

The words felt like a blessing. Bruce radioed we were heading home, and we activated the GPS that would pull us back to our own place and time. After another spiraling flight through whatever the Quantum Realm was, I felt metal under my feet, and retracted my helmet to see the welcome sight of the compound hangar. Bruce was beside me, and I all but jumped into his arms. “We made it, dude!” I yelped, then looked around at the sounds of more feet. Thor and Rocket appeared nearby. Rocket clutching a vial filled with a viscous red fluid. There were wet streaks on Thor’s cheeks, but an incredulous smile tugged at them too. In his hand, weirdly, he held—“Mjolnir? Thor, I thought you told us it—”

“Was destroyed, yes.” He sniffled a little with no shame. “I thought I would summon it, while I was in Asgard, just to—to see if…I was still worthy.” He held it up and shrugged as if to say _and here it is_.

“You okay, buddy?” Bruce walked over, concern on his features.

“I, um, I saw my mother,” Thor admitted.

“Oh, sweetie.” I could only imagine, if my trip into the past had brought me face to face with my mom, before the dementia took her mind. I hugged him tightly, sparing a bit of my brain to hope he didn’t drop the great magic hammer on my foot, and ignoring Rocket's snark about how Thor saw his mom but Rocket saw Thor’s ex’s comely backside.

Tony had set the GPS timers to pull each team back with a little space between them, to spread out the pull on the system. It worked, too, it seemed. About thirty seconds later, a ping and a thump sounded, followed by a sensation I knew too well but hadn’t felt in months, not since Vision’s death and the snap: the pressure of the Mind Stone. My hand went up to touch the back of my head, the insistent force against my scalp an almost physical thing, as though once again the virus in my body was trying to protect me. My mouth flew open into a smile, and I started to turn with excitement to greet the rest of my team—obviously they had grabbed the other two stones from 2012 and gotten back safely. Thor’s gaze went past my shoulder though, and I wondered why he looked suddenly startled and distressed.

When i looked around, only Scott stood on the platform, one hand a little shaky where it clasped the scepter that held the stone. “Where’re Tony and Steve?” Bruce asked in alarm.

“They lost the other stone. Tony said he knew where they could go to grab it, so he reset their locators and gave me this to bring back.” Scott lifted his chin and put on a brief air of royalty. “I dub thee unforgiven,” he intoned, or tried to, with a wave of the scepter that made me gulp in fear he’d drop the darn thing. When he tried to reach over to deactivate his suit, he nearly did. 

Bruce caught it from him and examined it with interest. “I assume this one is identical to its predecessor, so we better be on our guard so it doesn’t try any of its tricks. Can you feel it, Chrissy?”

“Yeah, I can. It’s a pressure, like before. Guess Extremis senses it, and is pushing back again. Not as hard, though. This one doesn’t ‘know’ me, for lack of a better term, so maybe my little buddies don’t perceive it as being as much of a threat? We haven’t met. I know,” I said to Bruce’s disapproving look, “the stones aren’t ‘alive’, and I shouldn’t anthropomorphize them. It’s the best comparison I can come with, so, sorry not sorry.” 

I trusted Tony knew what he was doing, so we figured he’d set his and Steve’s controls to give the system a few seconds before they returned. It was time enough for me to do a quick analysis of what I was feeling, and notice it was something more than before. I could sense the Mind Stone’s renewed presence, but it seemed to sense me too. The tension within me, resisting the external energy, was meeting something that nudged around the edges of my awareness. The sensation made me think of Bucky’s description of how Zima felt in his mind.

As we had surmised, Steve and Tony reappeared with a _booof_. They both looked pleased, but reflective. “So we hear you two got lost,” I teased.

‘Knew we shoulda turned left at Albuquerque,” Steve shot back in his best attempt at a Bugs Bunny voice.

Tony laughed. “The way I run this thing you’d think I knew something about it,” he returned. “Fortunately, unlike Bugsworth, I do.”

“Everybody make it back with their assigned hardware?” Steve asked while they doffed their suits to reveal vintage clothing they must have lifted somewhere along the way. Tony reached into a briefcase (that I definitely did not recall seeing him leave with. I was going to have to give him grief about stealing some poor soul’s paperwork, later) and showed off the Tesseract, burning with a fierce blue glow that reminded me of his old arc reactor. 

Rocket brandished the vial (how was an Infinity Stone liquid, anyway?), and Bruce just shrugged with the scepter. I slipped one hand into my purse, felt the cool of the Time Stone slip into my fingers, and held it up. “Mission accomplished,” I said with a little smirk aimed at Tony, and basked in the pride in his answering look.

People began to step down to the floor and over to put the Stones down in their assigned area. Tony wanted them as far away from the equipment as possible to minimize the risk of their being triggered by vibration from activation, and the risk of them affecting the gear in any way. “Who’s up next?” Rocket asked.

“Barton and Romanoff,” Tony replied while he plopped the Tesseract on the designated worktable. “Fifteen seconds or so.” 

“You tagged Rhodey’s team to come in last so you could aggravate him about being late, didn’t you?” I elbowed him, then eyed the tiny glowing thing cupped in my hand. “It seems so small. Should I find something to put it in so it doesn’t get knocked off in the floor?”

Thor mumbled and rooted around in his clothes, and with a little yelp of triumph extricated a small leather drawstring bag. I exclaimed thanks and was just sliding it into its new home when another pop announced the next arrival. Tony's eyes lifted, focused past us at the platform, and narrowed. When I turned around, I saw why. Rhodey and Nebula stood on their spots. Neb looked around with an air of distraction. Rhodey shook himself a bit in his War Machine armor wrapped in its quantum skin, then grinned broadly. “Back from the stars, and without getting skewered by Indiana Jones’ booby traps!” His grin faltered when he saw every open-mouthed face staring. “What? I got space dust on my face?”

“Where are Nat and Clint?” Steve asked, very quietly. "They were supposed to be back by now."

Tony rushed to the control board. “Did their GPS malfunction?” Scott said, but Tony shook his head as he frantically checked readings.

“They’re showing as operational, they just haven’t activated them to come back.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” Bruce protested. “No matter how long it takes them there, we shouldn’t be seeing a lag here, there’s no reason they wouldn’t—”

Steve’s voice tightened. “Unless they can’t.” 

He whirled and headed back toward the platform. “Cap!” Tony hollered. “We don’t have enough extra—”

Steve veered off his straight path, toward the control panel. He dipped one hand in a pouch on his belt and slowed just long enough to drop a fist full of Pym particle tubes beside Tony’s hand. “I grabbed as many as I could in 1970,” he panted. Keeping several charges in his hand, he continued on his way.

While I was sputtering what the fuck about 1970, Tony snatched up another round-trip dose and jumped onto the platform too. “Bruce, pull up the co-ords for Vormir!” he called while simultaneously resetting his GPS.

He grabbed for Steve’s arm to do the same, but Steve resisted. “Tony, you don’t have to—”

Tony cut him off. “Whatever it takes, right?” His jaw set, he signaled Bruce to send them off. “Pull us back in forty-five seconds!” he yelled.

The next moment, they were gone, and we were left wondering if somehow, suddenly, horribly, we were about to lose four of the original six Avengers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The time gaps between the teams returning is not canon but it made sense to me as a safety precaution, plus I felt it gave the characters and the scene some room to breathe. 
> 
> Bugs Bunny's first use of the iconic line about Albuquerque appears in a 1945 cartoon where he gets off course and is chased by Nazis. Allied soldiers loved their cartoons, so Steve could have seen it just before he went into the ice. If not, I headcanon he and Bucky both liked Bugs, so they have probably binged the whole run several times since Bucky's rescue in this verse. 
> 
> Scott's quoting the Metallica song Unforgiven, btw.


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What Happened on Vormir, Wordsmith style. :)

What followed was one of the longest short time periods of my life. Time travel, all right; every second felt like an hour. I didn’t realize my fingers were trembling until Thor’s big hands folded over mine. “Come, Christine, and put your stone with the others. If Steven and Anthony return with the Soul Stone, and Clinton and Natasha, do you really want to be the person who lost theirs?”

I wanted to glare at his feeble attempt at humor, but I couldn’t drag my eyes away from the empty platform. He had to direct my steps over to the workspace where the other four Stones lay. “Sorry,” I said after I laid down the little bag with its contents faintly glowing even through the leather. “I…can’t stop looking.”

“That stands to reason,” he said, his big voice gentle. “You are a wordsmith. It’s in your nature to bear witness, so as to carry forth the tale truly.”

Everybody else seemed the same though, really, too stunned by this sudden turn to do much of anything. Nebula hung back, her arms folded and her eyes darting. Scott was more fidgety than Tony at his worst. Bruce was the only exception; still in Hulk form, he hovered over the control board with his focus locked onto the readouts, and muttered to himself until he yelled out loud. “Yes! All four GPS's just activated!”

We all moved like a crowd at a concert rushing the stage, just as multiple small bangs echoed through the hangar. Two figures appeared, one clearly Steve from the size, the other as plainly Tony in his Iron Man suit under its quantum skin. Each carried another figure that didn’t move. My heart stuttered, literally; it felt like it did skip two or three beats and my breath caught in my throat. The helmets peeled back and the guys jumped down the steps with their loads. Steve started toward the door that led out of the hangar, probably bound for the living quarters or at least the lounge area, someplace to lay them down.

Tony didn’t follow him, though. “Steve, the Stones!” he called, his eyes wild. “We can’t leave them in here unguarded. Lang, grab your Kamp Krusty surplus?” Scott, with Bruce right behind him, ran to an alcove to pull out the two folding cots they kept stowed and occasionally zonked out on during the mad push to get the time heist tech perfected and set up. 

Tony gently laid Nat on one, then looked like he was going to fall to his knees beside it. Rhodey yelped and caught him while I rolled the nearest chair over. Steve settled Clint on the free cot, then hurried to crouch between, with one hand on Tony’s leg, and doff his quantum suit. Tony had to try twice before he could activate the housings to remove both suits he wore, because his hand was so shaky.

The others gathered around, attention divided between the two people lying still and breathing quietly, and the two who brought them back. “What the frack happened?” Rocket demanded.

It was a measure of how extraordinarily strained Tony was that he didn’t even snark back. “He said they’d wake up in a while,” he returned, his gaze darting from one cot to the other, as wired as I’d ever seen him.

“He who?” I asked, standing behind the chair. Once his suits had retracted, I put my hands on his shoulders; his head turned just enough to let me know my touch had registered, and he reached up to pat my hand.

It was Steve who answered. “Red Skull.”

Thor frowned. “You told us of a man by that name, who you fought in your day, Steven. Who is this one?”

“The same, believe it or not.” Steve gave Tony’s knee a friendly little knock. “Tony had to hold me back to keep me from finishing what I started in 1945.” Tony managed a weak half-grin in response. “When we fought over the Tesseract, Schmidt—that’s Red Skull’s name, Johann Schmidt—vanished when he got his hands on it. I figured it vaporized him, but he said, for what his word is worth, that it sucked him through a wormhole, and, cursed him, I guess you’d say, for touching it, by making him guard the Soul Stone until somebody came who could take it.”

“For the record,” Tony put in, “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but the comic book artists didn’t do him justice. He’s one ugly SOB.”

“Wow,” Scott said. “Yeah, I’ve read those. He was pretty. Pretty ugly.”

Tony had settled enough to give Scott an indulgent eyeroll. “We made planetfall right beside the _Benatar_ and followed Clint and Nat’s trail up this mountain, which, ow, I hadn’t trained for that and my glutes may hate me for it. Darth Maul greeted us like a bored maître d serving up…” He faltered, then pushed on. “He was floating around at the top of this cliff, and—and Natasha and Clint were lying there. He said they tried to get the Stone, and failed. That’s when Cap called bullshit and waded in ready to pound him. Reining you in, by the way, Steve? Highly not recommended, somebody else gets that gig the next time Avengers play Doc and Marty.”

“How did they ‘fail’?” Thor asked, with those precious finger quotes of his. “What was required? Or what this skull entity claimed was required?”

“Schimdt said…to get the Stone, we had to sacrifice something—someone—we loved. A soul for a soul. An everlasting exchange, no refunds available.” Tony shook his head and looked over both sleeping figures again. “Apparently the idiots here got into a fight over who was going to throw themselves off the cliff, and they both ended up falling. So it didn’t take either of them, just put them back topside.”

_A soul for a soul_. The guardian of the Stone must have told Clint and Nat—must have told anybody who found their way there to try and claim their prize. “Nebula,” I gasped, my head up and looking around till I spied her hovering at the edge of the group. “Dammit. You said Thanos took your sister there, and you suspected he killed her on the trip. I bet this was it, though. I bet the sociopathic son of a bitch killed her to get that stone.”

That finally tore Tony’s attention from his account. Nebula’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened slightly, before she turned and fled the hangar. Tony started to call “Smurfette?” after her, but Rhodey forestalled him with a hand. 

“Let her go, Tones. That’s –that’s gotta be hard,” he said. A fine tremor shivered under my palms, through Tony’s shoulders, and I thought I knew now where this agitation came from. The Stone demanded a sacrifice. Tony wouldn’t have let anybody else take that bullet, but something had prevented him from doing it himself. So, I guessed, they had come back with Clint and Nat, but no Soul Stone, and Tony was blaming himself. Guilt made him either withdraw, or go all nervy and high-strung, and this looked a lot like the latter to me, considering I hadn’t looked him in the eye yet.

I was already halfway into formulating one of those loving reprimands I thought he had grown past—of course no one would let Tony willingly hurl himself off a cliff, no matter what. Steve didn’t look devastated, though, the way I would have expected him to if all hope of completing the set of the Infinity Stones and returning our lost loved ones was lost. He stood up and scooted Clint over just far enough to sit on the edge of his cot, then picked up the thread of the account. “While Schmidt was saying all this, something appeared in the air off the cliff, a little glow, amber-colored, and floated toward us.” 

He was interrupted when Clint grumbled, smacked his lips, then blinked and looked around. Our excitement only doubled when Nat roused seconds later, and we greeted them and got them sat up. Clint seemed disoriented, or he did until Nat looked him over and then cuffed him with a wry little grin. “He lost his hearing aids,” she explained. 

“Good timing, you two,” Rocket grunted. “Nobody wants to have to sit through this epic twice. Carry on, Cap.”

Steve and Tony both shifted so Clint could read their lips, and Steve resumed. “Schmidt looked around when the light came near, and he seemed—confused, angry even. Swatted at it like a mosquito, but his hand passed right through it, so we assumed it was some kind of illusion, until—” he dug around in his handy belt pouch again— “this settled into Tony’s hand.” He pulled out the small orange twin to the Time Stone Bruce and I had carried back from New York. Tony’s fingers twitched when Steve laid it in his palm.

“Schmidt was shocked,” Steve continued, “but then he paused—like he was on comms with somebody, I almost expected him to put his hand to his ear. He said ‘the Infinity Stones have a certain amount of awareness of what is going on around them, and of what befalls their counterparts in other universes. The Soul Stone, most of all. It has its rule, and it follows those who obey the letter of that rule, but the sacrifice offered in your universe was selfish and unworthy.” I caught my breath again; that statement tended to confirm my suspicion about Nebula’s sister, killed by the surrogate father who had claimed to love her. “’Yours, Anthony, son of Howard, follows the spirit of the rule, and was not.’”

“Needless to say,” Tony said, “I was completely baffled. Clearly I’m not notorious for being the sacrificing type.” I tried not to cut him off by snorting out loud at that absurd comment. “So I called him and Tinkerbell here out on that, and he—he said ‘your sacrifice has been accepted. Why would the Stones care about the time stream, when one of them controls time? If time fettered them, they wouldn’t be called infinity stones’.”

“Guess that makes sense,” Bruce nodded. “It would also explain the Stones being, uh, aware, sort of, across the multiverse. So it counted something or someone you had previously lost. What did he mean, though? Did he say?”

“We think he meant Peter,” Steve said softly. “Peter was the sacrifice, and the Stone judged Tony’s grief more than worthy.”

Bruce’s mouth hung agape. “Of course. It happens in the future, objectively, since that was 2014, but in your timeline it’s your past, and if it can perceive across multiple universes, it sees all of that.”

The words of the rule slammed into me with an almost physical force, then. _An everlasting exchange._ “Does…that mean…” I forced my hands to flatten and be still, or my grip might have bruised Tony’s shoulders or worse. He must have felt some sign of my sudden horror, because his free hand reached up and took mine and tugged me around in front of him. 

Nat got it, of course. “To get the Stone, we can’t bring Peter back?” she asked, her face more composed even than usual, which, I knew, was a wall holding back her own dread of his reply.

Tony blinked. “No! I, um, I may have asked that…” His voice failed, and he jiggled the merrily glowing little thing in his hand, looking down and away as if…embarrassed, or ashamed?

“Um, yeah?” I said, puzzled. “Of course you did.” My heart froze at the thought of Tony being forced to choose between the boy he loved like his own flesh and blood, and all the other people lost.

“It got kind of fuzzy,” Tony admitted. “Hellboy kept bitching like he was arguing with the Stone--Bruce, we may have understated the potential for sentience in these lightning bugs. Then he went all one-hand-clapping vague on us, said something about a set sequence: the request first, then the sacrifice, then the granting. Nobody had done it in the time he’d been there. But as I usually do, I apparently managed to upset the applecart royally. He said, what was given to the Stones, the Stones kept; but what the Stones took, the Stones would return.”

“In essence,” Steve said with a fond look, “it appears the Soul Stone is giving us a mulligan.” 

The old-school term broke into Tony’s distress. “Mulligan! That’s really a golden oldie, Cap, do we need to get your walker?” Steve shoved him, and the laugh they shared spread through the group. I sighed with relief. “Long story short,” Tony finished, “yeah, we get everybody back, we get him back too. We do have to return the Stone afterwards, or blushy boy implied things would not go well.”

“That’s kind of a given, I guess. Bruce and I promised the Ancient One the same with the Time Stone,” I replied. 

Rhodey cocked his head. “Ancient One? Whoo, listen to you. We need to hear that story!”

“And yours!” I retorted. “And everybody’s. Let’s get a bite of lunch and swap stories.”

We lost a few members: Tony, Rocket and Bruce inhaled sandwiches and hustled off with the Stones in tow. While they worked to set them into the gauntlet Tony had built, we compared notes about our respective journeys, and found out, among other things, that Steve had actually gotten to fulfill the wish he’d made during Deuce’s visit—he got to kick his own ass. The brief lull lightened the mood for a bit, but we all knew what was coming next. Somebody was going to put that gauntlet on, and snap, and the universe might never be the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, do y'all think Steve and Tony are right?


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At last, the moment arrives. The Avengers choose their champion and make their play to reverse the disaster of Thanos' snap.

Nebula remained AWOL, but Rhodey implied that their trip had been more of an emotional trial than she had anticipated, so the group came to a mutual silent agreement to give her some space and a little time. Otherwise, after eating and cleaning up, people scattered, though not too far. Rhodey did something on his phone. Clint went to get his backup hearing aids, and then he and Nat crouched in a corner spinning a dagger and talking in low tones. Scott wandered around looking at everything and nothing. Steve was—someplace; maybe beating up one more punching bag before the balloon went up. 

In another corner, Thor sat in a chair and stared, seeming millions of miles away. Maybe he was. I hopped up to sit on the edge of the table beside him. “I’d say ‘penny for your thoughts’,” I teased gently, “but you are a king, so I guess those go for a higher rate.”

He chuckled a little and shifted in his seat. “Just thinking about mum. The coordinates we went back to…I saw her a few hours before she died. I tried to tell her what was going to happen, so maybe in that timeline she would live, but she wouldn’t let me. She said she knew I was there to mend my future, not hers.” He let out a sigh. “That would’ve been one life I could have saved.”

From my one meeting with Queen Frigga, I could imagine her saying that; she had been both regal and loving. “Pretty good bet, based on my limited experience, that whatever she said to you was from her heart. You should listen to her.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I should.” His tone took on a wistful note. 

I took my ponytail down, shook my hair out, and pondered my next move. The heist was done and I survived it. The logical next thing was for me to take my ass down to the compound media room, pull the post-mortem materials I had created, and delete them, then wait for the results of the snap. That was the logical thing, but Lord knows I’m not always known for my logic. What I really wanted to do was to be present, to bear witness to what was undoubtedly going to be the most heroic act of our generation, or frankly of human history. Granted, as much as I dislike misleading the public, I wasn’t exactly going to explain to the press corps how I knew the smallest details of the day the universe was restored, but maybe one day, years from now, I could tell the whole tale, and for that, I would need to know it firsthand. Deeper still than that sense of duty, though, there was something more. At the church where I grew up, they called it feeling that God had laid something on your heart. I just felt a need to not leave these people I cared about to stare down the barrel of that power alone. Even though I couldn’t actually do anything to help, I could be here, and sometimes that was something.

While I vacillated, Tony poked his head in through the door from the lab area. “It’s ready,” he said. “C’mon.”

I hesitated, then put my hair back up hastily and followed the others into the workspace, slipping into a back corner with the intent to observe. The gauntlet Tony had designed, bright metal and hot-rod red, lay in a containment cradle, with the Stones now set in it. Four stones sat on the fingers’ knuckles, the Time Stone on the thumb, and the Mind Stone in the back. “Okay,” Rocket said, “who’s gonna snap their freakin’ fingers?”

“I’ll do it,” Thor said immediately. “It’s okay,” he added when a hubbub rose in response.

“Wait, Thor!” Steve argued. “Just wait. We haven’t decided who’s—”

Thor cut him off. “Oh, I’m sorry. What, were you just sitting around waiting for the right opportunity?”

“We should at least discuss it!” Scott protested.

“Scott’s right,” I piped up. So much for my intent to observe. “And he’s not even a candidate. But Thor, there are more people here than just you who are enhanced beyond human, and might have the potential to do the deed. Steve, Bruce—hell, even me.” Not that I had any desire to do such; Extremis was pushing against the Mind Stone so hard I felt like the north end of a magnet being forced away from another one.

Tony’s hair all but stood on end. “Oh hell no,” he growled at me. “If you think for one minute—”

“Grown-ass woman, hot rod!” I warned him.

“—that I’d let you pull a stunt like that and leave me for Barnes to kill when he got back, in any of the innumerable ways I’m sure his brain-roommate still has full mastery of—"

Thor’s voice rose over our spat. “Us sitting here staring at that thing, or arguing about who gets to take the blow, is not bringing anyone back, is it.” He phrased it as a statement, not a question, and took a step toward the table. “My mother always gave wise counsel, whether I heeded it or not, and just now…just now she told me that the truest measure of a hero is to succeed at being who they are. I’m the strongest Avenger, it’s my responsibility. Fate wills it so.” With a groan, Tony tore his attention from me and advanced on his friend. “No, Tony!” Thor almost pleaded. “Stop it! Just—just let me do that. Just let me do something good.”

“Look.” The sharp tone Tony had taken with me softened in the face of Thor’s obvious distress. “It’s not just the fact that that glove is channeling enough energy to light up a continent. I’m telling you, you’re in no condition.” Thor wasn’t in that bad shape, I thought, but then in the next moment I caught Tony’s meaning. He recognized where Thor’s head was; he’d been there before, and my heart hurt for them both. I stepped back out of the way, bumped slightly into something, and looked around to meet Rhodey’s eyes. While Tony and Thor continued to argue, I leaned back against his sturdy suit and gave him a hopeful half-smile.

Bruce, still in Hulk form, was hovering in the background, but when he spoke, all discussion ceased. “Your lightning won't help you, pal. It's gotta be me. You saw what those stones did to Thanos. It almost killed him. None of you could survive it. None of you.”

A look of surpassing disapproval crossed Nat's face, though it was mingled with something like a reluctant acceptance. “So how do you know you will?” she asked.

Bruce shrugged. “I don't. But the radiation's mostly gamma.” He put his hands on the table and gazed down at the brutally beautiful thing that lay and glowed there. “It's like...uh...I was made for this.”

He and Tony exchanged a look that spoke volumes. ”Told ya,” Tony finally said, softly, and tried out a smile. I think it was supposed to be his usual reckless Let’s-Barrel-Headlong-Into-Adventure grin. It fell, as hard as a deactivated Iron Man. Bruce let out a silent little chuckle and nodded.

With that, another brief flurry of action erupted. There was no certainty what kind of backlash might result from our attempt, so everybody braced for impact, pretty much. Steve’s shield was at the ready, Scott’s Ant-Man helmet slid into place, and Rocket stepped behind Thor. I was the only person in the room not in battle-ready posture—not that a battle was coming, but I figured I might need to get out of the way fast—so I turned away long enough to unbutton my blouse and unzip my skirt. As I shimmied out and put them aside, Rhodey said over the faint whine of his repulsors coming online, “Time was, I’d make an inappropriate comment if I saw you doing that.”

“And at that time,” I retorted with a grin, laying my clothes aside and smoothing my uniform suit, “it wouldn’t have been inappropriate.”

The vibranium of my uniform and harness would protect my body, but without a helmet, I stayed slightly behind Rhodey and to one side. “Love ya, baby girl,” he said.

“Same, darlin’.”

Tony and Bruce were going over last-minute instructions—it sounded like the final round of a discussion they had probably had many times. “If we rewind everything,” Tony said forcefully, “it’s going to erase everything that’s happened since the snap. That makes us no better than Thanos. So, we bring everybody forward, everyone who was lost as a result of his snap. You’re just bringing them back to today. Don’t change anything from the last seven months. Got it?" 

“What’d we decide about Vision?” Bruce had finally torn his eyes from the gauntlet, to face Tony and get the procedure straight. “Asking for everybody who died because of Thanos’ actions should include him, but without the Mind Stone, is it really him? Shuri said she didn’t have time to upload him completely. Yeah, we have a Mind Stone, but Chrissy says it doesn’t feel like the previous one.”

“That's right,” I tossed into the conversation. “Plus Vision was part you two, part Ultron, a lot HOMER. I just don’t know…Guess you could ask the Stones, Bruce.”

Tony scoffed. “Despite what I said earlier, cornbread, they are inanimate objects. This isn’t Toy Story, they don’t freeze when we walk into the room.”

“Remind me to buy popcorn,” I snarked, “to munch while you explain to Stephen when he gets back, that his cloak is not a sentient entity because it’s a normally inanimate object.”

Bruce managed to stay on topic. “The code we extracted from the original Mind Stone was like an AI. How much more potential could there be with all six Stones together?” Tony just shrugged. “Can’t hurt to try when I formulate the request, if I can keep enough wits about me.”

“You’re the best there is at that, Zen Master Kermit,” Tony replied as he backed up. “Good to go?”

Bruce nodded. “Let’s do it.” 

Tony suited up, then nano’ed a broad shield, and gestured with his head for Clint and Nat to move in close beside him and behind it. “FRIDAY, activate Barn Door Protocol?”

“Yes, boss,” she replied, and a couple of moments later machinery whined as the compound went on lockdown, huge steel shutters closing us off from the sunlit world. Wherever Nebula was, I hoped she wasn’t panicking; the last thing we needed was her in a tizzy trying to get in, while Bruce was trying to focus on the task at hand. I looked around the workshop one last time, noticing all the little things, the way you do when you’re poised in a moment and you know everything is about to change. Bruce’s Kermit the Frog tea mug, the one Tony gave him, sat forgotten on a counter; beside it lay Clint’s cell phone. That made me think of something, and I felt around the small purse still slung across my body. Beside my folded sword, my fingertips located my phone. If we thought this worked, my first act would be punching a contact I hadn’t touched in seven months, and hoping to hear the voice I wanted most to hear in all the universe. 

Bruce picked up the gauntlet. For something that held the power to unmake and remake all things, it looked insignificant and flimsy in his big green hands. As he held it, though, the nanites shifted and expanded until the gauntlet was large enough to fit him. “Everybody’s comin’ home,” he said, so quietly, almost like a prayer, and my soul took it up. _The lives that were stolen from us, dear Lord, send them back safely…_

The metal slid smoothly into place, and as soon as it did, the Stones’ glow intensified. Bright arcs of power began to crackle between them and reflect off Bruce’s face. He grimaced, clutched the gauntleted right hand with his left, and went heavily down on one knee. Blinding lines of energy coursed from the glove up his arm, as if the Stones were feeling him out, testing him. My scalp crawled and my hands tingled—Extremis sensed the power, I realized, and I tried to calm it and myself. 

He twitched, then his whole body spasmed. “What’s happening?” Thor said, alarmed. “Take it off. Take if off!”

“No, wait!” Steve said. 

“Bruce!” Nat said urgently. “Are you okay?”

“Talk to us, Banner,” Tony added.

After a moment’s struggle, Bruce’s head rose, his face dripping with sweat. “I’m...I’m okay...” His right hand rose, so slowly, like a weight he could barely lift. His fingers moved, the thumb and middle came together, and with a metallic scrape, he snapped. The Stones blazed and Bruce let out a roar that made Hulk at his most furious sound like a kitten. A blast of white light blinded me, and everybody I supposed, because the next thing I knew, Bruce had crumpled to the floor.

The gauntlet slid off his now limp hand. Clint cautiously toed it and then slid it aside with his foot. Steve knelt beside Bruce and felt for a pulse in his left arm; the right one was seared, and burns reached up his neck. I winced and swallowed, but stood my ground even when I felt Rhodey look over at me. Tony and Nat went down on Bruce’s other side, and Tony sprayed a white cooling foam onto the scorched arm while Nat called Bruce’s name. While FRIDAY stood down and the lockdown shutters opened, Bruce stirred, then caught Nat’s hand in his. “Did it work?” he slurred.

I reached for my phone, but another ringer beat me to it: Clint’s, lying on the nearby counter. He walked over to it, looked down, then picked it up with a hand that I could see tremble from across the room. “Honey?” he said, and I put my hand over my mouth to suppress a cry of hope.

“Guys?” Scott called. I looked around and spotted him, past the now opened blast shields, at the big window in the lounge area that looked out onto the courtyard and entranceway. “Guys...I think it worked!“

I hurried over to stand beside him. He pointed to the bird feeder hanging in a little tree outside, thronged with birds pecking and chirping, and my God, it was the most wonderful sound. Well, one of the most wonderful. We exchanged grins and I reached for my phone, to try and get that most wonderful one, Bucky's voice.

And, naturally, that was when the world blew up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> eep.
> 
> I tweaked a couple of things from canon in this sequence to include Nat, as she would have been if canon hadn't KILLED HER. ahem.
> 
> So, a word about the reversal (or the blip, as canon calls it. what the heck is that anyhow?) How it would best be played is a majorly fraught question. In this verse, the Avengers explicitly include in the request made of the Stones, those who died in disasters as a result of Thanos' snap: plane crashes, building collapses, surgeries, babies left alone, and the like, as well as fighters who died standing against Thanos. 
> 
> Since the gap in the Wordsmith verse is much shorter, the issue of unborn babies isn't as great a one, but still present. People who were pregnant at the time of the snap would have given birth since then, but people who had gotten pregnant since then wouldn't have, except for premies. If time was rewound, as some have suggested might have been an easier solution, those unborn fetuses would cease to exist. One could argue their parents wouldn't remember them, but that still doesn’t make it right. A crime is a crime even if the victim never finds out about it. Plus, who might remember? Bruce, because he snapped them out of existence? The Avengers, who were in the immediate area of the Stones' action? Who should have to carry that burden of knowing? I still think one reason the writers of Endgame created Morgan was for her to serve as a sort of emotional stand-in for the millions of kids who would have vanished from the universe. That wouldn't have been right in canon, to me, and it's definitely not happening here.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trapped in the wreckage of the Avengers compound, Chrissy and friends escape, realize the extent of their predicament, and receive unexpected backup.

The floor beneath my feet disappeared, and I fell with a screech. I tried to look around and figure out what was happening, but there was no time; explosions and shouts deafened me and dust and chunks of building filled the air. When I landed, I hit hard enough that I was dazed, with the breath knocked out of me. I wasn’t sure how long I lay there, but it could only have been seconds, because the chaos around me had only worsened when I opened my eyes. 

I was surrounded by heaps of broken masonry and twisted metal. Far above my head I could barely make out the edges of a massive gap, through which a little daylight penetrated. If I’d fallen straight downward, this would be the remains of the compound’s underground garage and storage area. The little clear space where I lay was being maintained, I saw as I struggled to sit up and take stock of my condition, by Bruce, who stood like a shorthanded Atlas holding a massive slab of concrete over his head. A sizzle and spark on my other side brought me around to spy War Machine lying flat on his back. “Rhodey!” I yelped and hauled myself over to him.

The suit ratcheted open. “Chrissy,” he gasped. “You okay?”

“For a certain definition of okay,” I replied, pushed myself to stand bent over under the low clearance, and helped him pull himself out. “What happened?”

“Thanos,” Bruce groaned. “Or his ship, anyway. I saw it coming in. Who’s flying it, and how the hell they got here—ah—” The ceiling rumbled. He gritted his teeth and wavered a little, his body trembling. Overhead, a sharp crack sounded, and water started to pour down on us in sheets.

“Help!” another voice yipped: Rocket’s. “Hey! Somebody! I can’t—ack—”

Rhodey and I located him in a moment, trapped under a pile of rubble. “Get him out!” I urged Rhodey with a little push. “I’ll help Bruce. Maybe I can fill in for one arm.”

I took one quick look and found my purse; my phone had fallen out and was smashed to bits—even a Starkphone can only take so much. The sword Tony had crafted for me was only dusty, though, and if Bruce was right and minions of Thanos had sought us out for revenge or whatever purpose, I might need it. Cebise had attached a couple of equipment loops to my suit harness, which I had never used, but I was thankful for them now as I slid the rose-gold case into one. Behind me, as I ducked dangerously dangling wires to clamber onto a tumbled block beside Bruce, Rhodey was frantically trying his comms, calling for help, while he wedged a rod of rebar into the wreckage and levered it off Rocket.

My strength was no match for even half a Hulk, but every second I could buy us was a second help might come. I got my palms under one end of the slab that looked like it had maybe been the workshop ceiling moments before, and threw all my limited but enhanced force up against it. The water turned from a downpour into a deluge in only a few of those seconds, and the puddles beneath our feet became a drowning pool. Five feet high and rising, I thought insanely and fought to keep my footing. Rocket scrambled free, looking like a soaked street dog, and climbed as high as the tiny space that trapped us would allow. “Mayday!” Rhodey hollered. “We’re taking on water. Does anybody copy?”

“Tell ‘em to hurry their asses up!” Rocket snarled, his voice rising with panic he was plainly fighting back.

“We’re trapped!” Rhodey tried again. “We’re drowning! There’s no time—”

Another crack reverberated over our heads. The water gushing in now wasn’t clean-looking as if from a broken main; it had the earthy scent of lake water now, and the level rose so quickly it threatened to float me off my feet. Rocket kept slipping from his perch on a slick hunk of asphalt and falling with a little splash into the depths, only to surface spitting and swearing in a moment. Rhodey clung to a twisted section of pipe that protruded from the ruins. “Chrissy!” Bruce ground out. “You guys, get outta here, save yourselves.”

I shifted and tried to look past the edge of the slab we held up. “If I could see,” I started, then had to spit water and leaves out, “where this—is coming from, maybe I could get up there and melt something and stop it, seal it off!”

Rocket braced himself, and this time the dive he took looked deliberate. He bobbed up next to me, the water nearly past my shoulders now. “No good,” he gulped. “Couldn’t even find…a hole small enough to abandon you through.”

If he had, I found myself doubting he would have used it. Suddenly, the earth beneath us shook, and the ceiling piled above us dropped. I cried out, forced into a crouch, and Bruce snarled in pain. His legs nearly buckled; he set his jaw, and as I strained, he straightened and pushed, giving us a little headroom. I was sweating despite being drenched—Extremis must have been racing through my body trying to repair every muscle I was stressing to its limit. “May—mayday!” Rhodey called again. “I don’t think it’s work—"

“Hang on!” a voice responded. “I’m coming!”

“Is that Scott?” I said, then screeched as a wave knocked me off my feet. I lost my grip and the ceiling dropped till I almost smacked my face into it. Rhodey yelled and reached for me. I went under and madly trod water till I burst back into what little air space we had left. Rocket was dogpaddling. Bruce still stood, but barely, his head tipped back to keep his face above the surface. 

Rhodey’s hand closed on mine. Our eyes met, and I could see he was out of ideas, and we were out of time. “I’m sorry, baby girl," he panted. "See you—on the other side.”

One more breath. We wouldn’t ever know if Bruce’s sacrifice had succeeded, unless there was a way to find out in the afterlife. I determined to ask. One more breath, coughing dust and the stink of burning from somewhere—and then something erupted from the water, something big, and getting bigger by the instant. 

A couple of stories tall, Scott gazed down at us. One hand scooped into the water, under us, and lifted us, while the other hand picked huge lumps of rubble out and tossed them aside like Legos and pebbles. “Everybody okay?” he asked.

He kept growing; even Bruce looked small now, sprawled in his rapidly expanding palm. “Are now,” Rhodey puffed. “Thanks, really big guy.” Rocket got up and shook his fur vigorously to dry it. I wrung my ponytail out and checked on my sword, still safely sealed and tucked into my harness. “We got unwelcome company upstairs, Bruce said.”

“Seems like it.” Scott felt around his belt. “Thought you might need this.” What he laid beside Rhodey looked like a Barbie-doll sized armored suit, until he tapped it with one of his size-control discs and it popped back to full size. It was the newest War Machine upgrade Tony had just completed, painted in a color scheme reminiscent of the old Iron Patriot he had so hated. Rhodey laughed and rolled into it. “You guys ready to rumble?” Scott asked.

“Damn right,” Rocket growled, “if I had something to shoot with.”

Rhodey’s suit came to life, lighting up and coming online. From inside the helmet, a thoroughly wicked chuckle emerged. “Tony, you magnificent motherfucker, you never fail to deliver.” He tapped one forearm, where I noticed several weapons attached; they looked like smaller versions of the extendable cannons contained in the armor’s shoulders. “I think I gotcha covered, little buddy.”

Bruce had regained his breath finally. “So what’re we waiting for?” he demanded.

“Going up!” Scott replied, and folded his hand into a loose fist to protect us from flying debris. Between his fingers, I could see our would-be tomb beneath us as he shot up in height. Within seconds, we burst into free air, though it still stank of burning and destruction. Screeches of metal and cries both human and inhuman rang around us. “Top floor, everybody out!” 

Bruce jumped down. Rhodey took flight and hovered, while Rocket unfastened one of the small cannons then perched on his shoulder looking more than ready to mess some shit up. I sucked in a deep breath, and tried my metaphorical wings, shooting out of Scott’s palm and through the air in an arc that brought me to land in the middle of a hellscape. The remains of the Avengers compound looked like ground zero of an atom bomb test. A crater marked the spot where the main building had stood, and around its edge massed an army, creatures I remembered from the battle in Wakanda and creatures I had never seen or could have imagined. Craft both large and small buzzed overhead. Every entity’s attention was locked on the heart of the crater where two figures stood. One was Steve, his shield impossibly broken in half, barely on his feet; the other made me smother a yell. “What the fuck is Thanos doing here?”

I ran to Steve and let him lean on me to straighten. “Tony said…we messed with time, and it messed back,” he managed. “He knows everything we did, and he seems a little pissed off.”

A quick scan of the immediate surroundings showed no other Avengers, and my heart sank. I managed a shrug, though. “Sucks to be him. Where’s Tony?”

Steve jerked his head to one side. “Got knocked for six, over there. Go, Chris, get him, and get out of here before the big wave there hits…”

I squinted through the stinging clouds of ashy dust, following the line of Steve’s gesture, but couldn’t make out any red and gold. Of course I wanted to go to Tony, but I couldn’t leave my friends, our friends, and run like a scalded dog. “Got a concussion? Because you’re talking out your damn head.” Without looking away from him, I found the little case hooked to my harness by touch, held it out to my side and pressed my thumb into the crease that unfolded it. Practice makes perfect; a thread of thought sent its way kindled Extremis to a flow of flame coursing up the length of the sword Tony had built for me. “Fireblade reporting for duty, Cap.”

Hoo boy, did I get the Captain America Look of Disapproval dialed all the way up. I used Steve’s call name when I spoke about him to the press or others, but I never ever addressed him directly that way, and I knew he knew what I was saying. Of course, I realized the next moment I had likely screwed myself. By declaring myself an Avenger, I had beholden myself to follow his orders as team leader, and I bet I knew what he was about to order. Sure enough, after the glare, he sighed, and said, “Fine, you wanna play it this way, fine. Fireblade, I need you to go get eyes on Iron Man and take him to the rear because he is probably injured, and stay with him.” 

A rumble behind me broke up whatever I was about to say, and to be honest, I didn’t even know how I would reply. Like the song says, if I could choose a place to die, my first choice would have been in Bucky’s arms, or fighting by his side. Given the doom that was about to fall on us, I likely would never know if Bruce’s gambit had succeeded, if Bucky was alive and safe. There wasn’t anything I could do about that, though, and my second choice was to be beside Tony and take out as many of those alien bastards as I could. I gave a quick, sharp nod. “Understood,” I said. 

Steve was still scanning the horde upon us. I could almost see his brain racing, trying to come up with some strategy that would keep earth safe for a few more moments. Then his jaw dropped and he put a hand to the comm in his ear. Frowning, I cocked an ear and caught a faint voice, on his channel alone it seemed, staticky and only barely audible through the tumult to my enhanced hearing. “—you hear me? On your left!”

Behind Steve’s left shoulder, I spied a spark in the air, moving in an arc, and for a frozen instant I could not believe I was actually seeing it. I had to be imagining it…or maybe not. Whatever my face was showing, it apparently spoke clearly enough that Steve spun to look, and I knew I wasn’t hallucinating when his breath audibly caught. The spark completed a circle…a portal. Three figures I knew just from their silhouettes and their walk stepped through: Okoye, and Shuri, but between them, in full Black Panther habit, strode T’Challa, and I knew. 

I knew, before the next instant when Sam swooped through the portal above their heads on falcon’s wings, and the instant after that when portals began to spring open in the smoke-choked air all around us. The lost half of the universe had been reclaimed, and the lost heroes of earth were coming to fight beside us. 

They poured onto the ruined land where the compound had stood. Behind T’Challa marched the full might of Wakanda’s army, battle rhinos and Dora Milaje protected from the air by armed Dragon jets, and Hamid of the Ten Rings led a pack of fighters, rough-looking but bristling with weapons, at their rear. Visibility sucked, though, through the smoke and crud; I strained to spot Wanda, Pietro, or Bucky, but couldn’t for the moment. Through another portal came Brunhilde, on a freaking pegasus. By her stirrup, Loki and his Revenger friends led the survivors of Asgard, and it didn’t take magic to tell they were ready to take revenge, all right. 

Wong came in through another portal at the head of a huge group of people whose hands glowed with the power of their mystic arts. Alongside them flew a fae-like spark that hit the ground and became a full-sized female figure in a suit like Scott’s, and past her—what the hell?—ran Laura Barton holding two of the biggest knives I’d ever seen. Nat emerged from the rubble, spotted her and met her with a happy yell. Through yet another magical opening came a small armada of quick flying vessels—were they spaceships? In their wake, Strange swept in, the Cloak fluttering around him as though they were eager for battle too. A small band of fighters accompanied him; I didn’t recognize them but suspected they were the Guardians, Rocket’s crew, and was more certain when I made out a flash of a familiar web-laced form with them.

Not everybody was arriving via portal. Steve peered overhead with a start that turned into a big if grimy grin, which puzzled me until I traced his gaze upward. Instead of one more of Thanos’ ships, the biggest damn helicarrier I had ever seen, in photos or on video or in any format whatsoever, hove into view and opened fire on the enemy fleet. A multi-engined plane, probably huge in itself but looking small by comparison, lifted straight off from the deck and dove into the fray, cannons swiveling and cutting many of Thanos’ allies to ribbons. My attention was pulled from it by a streak across the sky, a familiar silver and violet-blue, that arced and dropped in the area Steve had said Tony went down. I could just imagine his face when Rescue, well, rescued him. “What’s the plan, Cap?” I asked.

“Beat them back, find the Stones, and get them as far away as possible as fast as we can.” Steve put out his hand and I heard something swoosh through the air behind me. I stepped to the side just before, insanely, the handle of Mjolnir slapped into Cap’s palm (I didn’t bother to ask the damn fool how that happened). “Avengers!” he roared. “Assemble!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The whispered assemble was stupid. I said what I said. lol


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle is joined. Chrissy does her part and has several reunions both expected and not.

Thor let loose with a roar only a god could muster, Scott smacked one of the space-whale things into next month, and it was on. Tony and Pepper soared overhead; joined by Rhodey, they strafed the battlefield, taking out rows of hideous attackers. The Dora Milaje blasted holes in the advancing lines of Thanos’ invaders, with Brunhilde riding beside them. At one point, she was using Okoye’s sonic spear, while my teacher slashed with a Valkyrie’s sword and Thor laughed at them while he felled attackers by the dozen.

I didn’t have time to baby myself. In Wakanda, I had still feared myself, but now, such weakness was no longer an option. Now, I whirled with my sword, the flaming rose gold vibranium alloy slicing through giant slobbering buglike things with all the resistance of a hot knife in butter. Once I cleared the ground around me, I doused and folded it, took up my stance and popped up a short way into the air. It only took a second to feel the lift carry my higher, and I hopped across the gashed earth toward a pair of huge apelike fighters in hopes of making a sneak attack. One was focused in another direction, but the other caught my approach and aimed its blaster squarely at me. There was no time to regain my sword, so I just laid Extremis on its hairy ass, and its buddy’s too. They fell smoking, with a freaky stink like rancid meat hitting a backyard grill.

I looked around to pick out my own next target, and that was when I spied a form I knew all too well in the middle distance, mowing down some Chitauri. “Bucky!” I screamed when the last one fell. He spun, and our eyes met. I blew him a kiss as his sweet unchanged face broke into a wide beautiful grin. His prosthetic hand rose as if to catch it, and my heart broke into a song and dance.

My yell had drawn less welcome attention, but even more determined now to whip every damned alien within reach of my arms (and Extremis), I mopped them up and took another hop. This time, I had company on my flight. “Christine!” Wanda flew up beside me, her eyes bright with excitement despite the gravity of the moment. “I had no idea you could do this!”

“Neither did I, Wands!” I hollered back. We landed long enough to share a quick hug, pulling Pietro in when he rushed up. It was quick, obviously, since a pack of Chitauri outriders were bearing down on us.

Both the Maximoffs looked pretty impressed when I made a nice hit with a fireball on the lead speeder-bike-thing and the wreck wiped out the three in close formation behind it. it reminded me of a bad afternoon at a NASCAR race. “Quite a glow up,” Pietro said with a nod of approval.

I grinned, then spied Nebula bashing some varmint’s head a short distance away. “I see another friend. We’ll catch up when things get settled!” I said and shot up and off calling Nebula’s name. She had ducked under an overhang of debris, probably to catch her breath, and as I dropped to land I spied another figure with her. “So glad to see you!” I exclaimed and caught her hands in mine for a moment. “I was afraid for you since you weren’t with the rest of us when all hell broke loose.” The other person turned, a female with clear green complexion and long berry-red hair. I caught my breath. “Nebula—your sister?” I reached out to the other woman in welcome, then halted when she stepped back with a scowl.

“Yes and no,” Nebula said. “She’s from before. She came with Thanos, but she’s with us now.”

“I have no desire to be sacrificed to his obsession,” the woman, Gamora, said dryly. I nodded and glanced at Nebula, whose fair face seemed torn with emotion; then out of the corner of my eye I spotted movement and turned with my hands up and Extremis scratching at my palms like a dog wanting outside. “Uh, she’s with me too,” Gamora added, sounding almost embarrassed, as a second Nebula emerged from the shadow of the wreckage.

“I was here first,” she retorted. Side by side, I could see the difference; compared to our Nebula, this version, apparently from the past, moved more stiffly, her features less expressive. “And this is my fault. Thanos sent me to let him through. You said he would kill Gamora to obtain a stone, so I hoped by giving him all, I could prevent that. But when I learned he intends to unmake the universe, not merely halve its population—he must be stopped.” Okay, fine, the enemy of my enemy, et cetera. She looked as battle-grimed already as the other two, so she seemed to be walking her talk for the moment anyhow.

“She—I—the other I—well, we,” our Nebula stumbled, “sent Barton off with the gauntlet, so we must keep it from Thanos at all costs.”

I grinned. “Remind me sometime to tell you about the week we spent with two Tonys.”

Nebula managed to look amused, impressed, and just a tad horrified, all at the same time. “That must have been something, he’s…quite energetic as it is.” She pulled her pair of electro-batons, as her double drew a long dagger whose blade crackled with energy, and Gamora brought a wicked-looking sword out of seeming thin air. “Where is your blade, Christine?”

I tapped the case on my harness. “I’m finding it gets in the way when I need to take to the air. This is actually quicker and easier.” With a taffy-pull of my hands I materialized the Extremis-saber and took it in a ready grip.

For the first time, Gamora’s face broke into a fierce smile. “Ah, another sister of the sword!” She inclined her head out toward the melee. “Shall we?”

“Let’s,” I agreed, and the four of us burst from cover and tore up a clump of enemy troops. 

As we paused after downing them, a welcome voice said, “Savin’ a dance for me, I hope, doll.” 

My new battle-mates all swung around, ready to separate Bucky’s head from his shoulders. “At ease, gals, he’s mine,” I said quickly, and held them off with a big grin and an upraised hand. “As if you have to ever ask, darlin’,” I added toward him, just before I got grabbed up for a big hug and a swift and fervent kiss.

Gamora sighed. “She got a handsome cyborg, and I got that idiot?”

I turned my head to see where she was pointing, and saw a tall ginger-haired man in a long coat laying waste to all the critters advancing on him, with two blasters in hand and a gunslinger’s stance. “He may be an idiot,” our Nebula said fondly, “but at least he’s your idiot, sister.”

With a snort, I spotted a pair of big ugly aliens wielding huge weapons about to jump Gamora’s idiot from the rear, so I ran that way and got close enough to firebomb them before they could take aim. He whirled ready to return fire, but I just waved and grinned. “Friend of Iron Man!” I hollered. “Talk to you later!” I kept saying some version of that to people, I realized as I took flight, so it was, therefore, necessary that I do all within my power to make sure that ‘later’ happened. 

As I hopscotched across the battlefield taking out everything I could, I kept one ear on the comms. Clint and the gauntlet had been found, and the plan, from the snatches of conversation I picked up, was to get it to Scott’s van, which had miraculously survived the initial attack but was surrounded by Thanos’ troops. Scott shrank and headed for it, saying he’d need about ten minutes to get the small quantum rig inside fired up and ready to move the Stones to safety. For ten minutes at least, then, we were going to have to play keep-away with one of the most powerful artifacts in the universe. Peachy.

I did what I could, blasting creatures on all sides, and time did that thing it does in extreme situations again, where it seems to slow to a crawl and speed by at a superhuman pace all at the same time. Now and again, I registered things going on in the background of my constant battles, clicking by like pages of a flipbook or clicks of a camera.

_Snap_. Space gorillas rushed Tony as he landed momentarily. Before I could get near enough to flame them, Shuri stepped in with her hand cannons blazing while Pepper blew them to mush on his other side. 

_Snap_. Against a side flank of buglike troopers, I would have sworn I spotted Phil leading a crew of SHIELD agents into the fray—one of them half-flying, moving in lofty hops like mine, and releasing blows that made the earth vibrate beneath my feet even at this distance. Sif strode with them, her blade at the ready. 

_Snap_. Another flutter of red caught my eye. Strange leaped through the air, the Cloak spread like a parasail as he blasted what looked like half a battalion of Thanos’ fighters. I launched myself that direction, with the thought I might have a chance to ask him if my theory about his vision had been right, but Tony beat me there. He landed and, true to form, was already talking when I reached them. “—said we win one in 14 million. Is this how it goes down?”

“If I tell you what happens, it won’t happen,” Strange intoned. 

I stifled a groan. He was every bit as cryptic as his mentor had been, and Tony was clearly suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. “You better be right,” he returned, then spotted me. “You good, fireball?”

I nodded. “Rocket’s gonna love you stole his name for me.”

“Course he will. We’re kindred spirits, he’s just got more hair. You see he partnered up with Darkwing Duck?” I hadn’t, but when Tony pointed, I saw Rocket had left his perch on War Machine and was wreaking havoc beside a fighter about his size who, sure enough, resembled a duck in a dark suit jacket with a big blaster gripped in its wing-hands. 

"Nice that he found somebody on his eye level.” I gave Tony a swift hug and turned as he burst into the air. Strange was eyeing me, well, strangely. “Glad to see you, Stephen. You too,” I added to the Cloak, who lifted a fold to wrap around my hand in momentary greeting. “Keep an eye on him, y’hear?” I took off too, not bothering to make another try at getting any straight answers from the Sorcerer Supreme, and returned to whacking adversaries and trying with little success to draw a bead on the location of the gauntlet. Despite my sensitivity to the Mind Stone, things were just too chaotic, moving too fast, for me to keep track of it. My focus had to remain on staying alive, as the strobe-light flashes of moments continued.

_Snap_. Bruce was swinging away one-handed, sending attackers flying with just his left arm, and snarling like he was about to completely unleash Hulk. Off his injured right flank, a big bald guy with his bare upper body painted with red markings slashed everything that got close with two nasty-looking blades. 

_Snap_. Peter sailed past, dangling by slender webs from the bottom of one of the little spaceships that came with Strange. A few moments later, I spied him on the ground talking to Tony, gesturing wildly with all his teenager energy on display, until Tony grabbed him up in a hug and kissed his temple without hesitation. I had a hot second or two to smile about that, before the sky opened up without warning and began to rain hellfire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Surprise! I know some of y'all hated that I let 2014 Nebula bring Thanos in anyway, but what she's learned has made a difference after all. 
> 
> Several things that didn't make the final cut of this last battle really should have, imho, so I restored them here, most notably Shuri taking out an attack on Tony, and yes, the Irondad kiss. <3 Also, how did Marvel just throw Howard the Duck into this battle and then never even show him again? LOL. He and Rocket gravitated together without my really intending it, and they seemed like a good fit as a team. 
> 
> For non-US readers, NASCAR is the governing body of American stock car racing and the term is often used as shorthand for it. Chrissy growing up in the South where it is most popular was exposed to it a lot as a kid, I'm sure. Stock car races often run in packs, door handle to door handle, hence why she used it as a comparison when the pack of speeders wiped out.
> 
> And YES, that is Coulson and his team! I’m hoping I described Quake's powers correctly. Since they shared an adventure with Sif, it seemed sensible that when she spotted them, she might go fight alongside them a while.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The balance of power shifts wildly amid the tides of battle, and at the pivotal moment for the entire universe, Chrissy refuses to turn away from her brother.

Thanos’ gigantic flagship started to bombard the ruined campus, with no obvious aim, just laying down deadly sheets of fire that took down friend and foe alike. I dove for cover under a door that was crazily still standing, though leaning at a precarious angle. Through my comm I heard Pepper call, “Anybody else see this?” Over the shrieks of the energy blasts, something louder still boomed. _Thunder?_ I thought, but that would have been Thor’s doing, and Pepper had sounded, not relieved at a friend’s strength, but as close to panic as I had ever heard her. 

Wong raced past me trailed by a handful of other wizards. I shook my head and tried to get my bearings—it was hard fitting this wreckage onto my mental map of the compound. _The lake,_ I realized, _that’s where they’re heading._ With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I lifted off and gained enough altitude briefly to see the bank about to give way, muddy water gushing and widening the cracks already inflicted. Every magic-user rushed to throw their power against it, even Loki, as the battle spiraled down into pandemonium. Humans and aliens alike ran for cover. That might be a good thing, though; if Thanos was so freaked out he was killing his own forces, maybe we were close. I dropped back to the ground and reached out again for the Mind Stone, and this time I felt it, above me, off to one side, and falling. I couldn’t get there for the continuing barrage of weapon fire—but suddenly it stopped, and the field felt weirdly quiet by comparison. Above my head, the blaster cannons opened fire again, but firing upward now, as if defending against something descending on them.

What was descending on them was the wrath of God, also known as Carol Danvers. She burst through the sides of huge vessel like a comet through tissue paper. It was a sight to behold. The craft listed badly to one side, its engines spraying sparks, and the helicarrier moved in to finish it off; but it got one shot more off at Carol, hovering in mid-air unsteadily as though drained, and this time the impact knocked her tumbling. Pepper swept in and caught her, and they landed nearby. I headed to check on them, spying Nat and Laura coming from another direction and Wanda from another. The press of the Mind Stone was there too, and I hit the air for greater speed as the rooftop crew converged. The gauntlet lay, not abandoned or unguarded, but hugged tightly in Peter’s grasp where he lay in a small crater. “Miss Everhart!” he gulped with a dazed but pleased little grin when I landed. “Wow, you look like a boss. Not _the_ boss, but definitely _a_ boss.” His eyes flicked to Carol as she approached. “Uh, hi, I’m Peter Parker.” 

_Still got his manners. May’ll be proud of him,_ I thought. Pepper smiled too, and I suspected she was thinking the same.

“Hey, Peter Parker,” Carol replied. Her easy and reassuring grin said she was instantly charmed by the kid, just like virtually everybody else. “You got something for me?”

While he handed the gauntlet off and got hugged by Wanda and Pepper, I spied Nebula and her sisters, accompanied by another female—with antennae, weird, but cute--and waved them over. While they hurried in, I greeted Laura. “Wasn’t expecting you at this party!” I said.

She shrugged with a casual air that, even if I hadn’t known she was Clint’s mate, would probably have led me to guess it. “Got tired of just phoning it in.”

I looked around the immediate area and hailed Okoye and Shuri when I saw them close by. “I don't know how you're gonna get through all that,” Peter told Carol uncertainly, his eyes scanning the regrouping horde.

“Don’t worry, kid,” a new voice replied. Brunhilde rode up, her horse’s snowy wings spread wide. Sif was with her, her jaw set like she was ready to take any and every opponent out personally, and a flicker on the other side resolved into the dark-haired shrinking woman.

Nat swept the assembled group with a gaze, then said dryly, “Looks like she’s got help.” Peter lunged at her for a hug, not a typical Black Widow move of course, but she clearly wasn’t about to turn it down. 

Of all the events I had not expected this day, being part of the force making the final drive to get the Stones out of Thanos’ reach was the wildest. In a flying wedge (literally, at points) we started to tear through the line of troops. The survivors of Thanos’ Black Order came at us and were cut down. Like that day seven months before on the plains of Wakanda, I dared to hope. The van was within sight now, its chipped and nondescript paint job the perfect camouflage. Scott slung the back doors open, and the quantum tunnel glowed like a wormhole to safety. Carol kicked in her afterburners, was almost, almost there—and something exploded and sent us all flying.

The world spun, my head collided with something, and everything went black. I wasn’t sure, when awareness started to seep back into my throbbing skull, how long I had been out. Scuffles and grunts and yells sounded near me, punctuated by a crash and groan. I rolled over to face the source of the noise and persuaded my eyes to open. Bodies sprawled all around: Steve, Thor, Carol, Tony. And at the epicenter of the destruction, stood Thanos, with the gauntlet Tony had made on his filthy undeserving hand. 

Even the air seemed to still. One stone was clasped in his left hand—the purple one, Power—but as he moved to replace it, the stillness was broken by a slim figure hurtling at him. “No!” Gamora screamed. “You will not use the power you bought with my blood, to destroy all things!”

Thanos lifted his huge arm and gazed at her dangling from it raging. “Your blood was untrue, daughter. I had hoped it would not be so, but, well, it is what it is.” With a careless gesture, he flung her off and away, and I caught a painful-sounding crunch when she fell. “I will make you anew, and more appreciative, I hope.”

“You may make something,” another voice hissed, “but it will not be her. It will be a puppet, but that’s all you ever wanted.” Nebula, our Nebula, stalked toward him. “In this universe, you killed her without a second’s hesitation, to get what you wanted. Your ‘favorite’, and she was still in the end only one more pawn in your mad game.”

I couldn’t quite get up yet, but I rolled again while a hot flash raced through my veins; Extremis was rushing to patch me up. As my vision cleared, I searched my surroundings for Bucky, but couldn’t see him, and likely couldn’t have gotten to him if I had. After all this cain being raised, we were back where we had been when Steve called assemble. If I could drag myself far enough, while Thanos was distracted even for a few seconds by the daughters who now hated him, it looked like I would die beside Tony after all.

“A game I am about to win, ungrateful child,” Thanos growled, and turned the force of the Power Stone on her. She was hurled across the ground and into a heap of tumbled concrete blocks. “And you are equally thankless,” he added and abruptly flicked the stone upward—and the other Nebula was knocked from his shoulder, blades in hand for a sneak attack she never got to launch.

Water began to spill across the ground, as the sorcerers reached the end of their endurance. Strange was nearest, with a desperate look that was so out of place on his often haughty face, and he raised a shaky hand to Tony, who had managed to regain his footing. Why, I couldn’t tell: maybe just to wish a comrade in arms goodbye. 

With an almost reverent motion, Thanos placed the Power Stone back in the gauntlet and it flamed to light with its fellows. This close to the gauntlet in active mode, I felt the Mind Stone like a big hand slapping my face over and over, but I grabbed a nearby piece of rebar and used it to push myself to my feet, just as Tony lunged at him and grabbed his hand. God bless him, Tony wasn’t going to go down without a fight, so neither would I. They wrestled for only a few moments; Tony was human, and weakened by the battle, and Thanos knocked him aside. I managed a step forward, then another, fury and grief giving me just enough strength to move my feet. In the distance I could hear the helicarrier, but it was too far; it couldn’t get here in time. 

Thanos lifted his hand, his teeth gritted against the pain he had to be feeling as the Stones woke once more. “I am...inevitable,” he declared to the ruination around him.

But he wasn’t.

He wasn’t, because _he didn't have the Mind Stone in his hand anymore._

Instead of pushing, Extremis almost jerked my attention to one side, to where the stone I knew pulsed--to where Tony had struggled to his knees. All six of the Stones were literally crawling up his fingers into place as a new gauntlet formed, the nano-particles lit with the flames of creation. My idiot genius of a brother had built in a fail-safe, a last-ditch way to keep the Stones away from Thanos, by taking them himself, and _Thanos didn’t know it yet but I did._

Horror and love impelled me, giving me the strength to make one more little flight. Strange was still fighting to hold back the lake, but he glanced back around and his eyes widened in shock. I ignored him; I was busy. I barely got off the ground, but it was enough to get me where I needed to be. With a bump I landed behind Tony, fell to my knees and threw my arms around his waist. Startled, he jerked and tried to throw me off; he didn’t know who had hit him, and even through the Iron Man suit, I could feel him shake as the power and the pain took him. “It’s me, hot rod,” I whispered.

Bruce’s words echoed in my head: _None of you could survive it. None of you._ If I could get my legs to cooperate, and get Tony clear, and get it off his hand fast enough, maybe we could escape before the theft got noticed. At that moment, Thanos, that cosmic dumbass, snapped his fingers, and only got a metallic click like a car engine that wouldn’t turn over. So much for the escape-unnoticed plan.

I tried to stand and bring Tony up with me, but he resisted, and his hand lifted skyward. It hit me like a blow from Thanos’ fist, all at once, then. Those times in recent days he had seemed so noncommittal about the future, the casual comments that had chilled me with memory of the days he had been wrapping up his affairs, sure he was about to die, had been true. He had thought, all along, it might come down to this. With no time to flee, the only way was straight through. 

He was gonna use those damned stones. The gauntlet only partially covered his hand, leaving his fingers free ( _and you planned that too, didn’t you, damn you, Stark, so you could SNAP if you had to)_. Ripples of energy from the stones twined like a rainbow of luminous snakes, around his arm and up toward his shoulder. He couldn’t survive it, not the token squishy human his teammates had joked about for years. 

I couldn’t either, but maybe, at least, I could help, somehow. My thought, such as it was in the shaven second I had to think, was that if I couldn’t take the burden of the one stone that I knew, I could at least be with him. As Thor had said, it was in my nature to bear witness. 

For a precious instant or two, Thanos was frozen. He stared at his hand in disbelief, and I spared a breath to cackle at the dumbstruck expression on his hideous face, like an ignorant tourist who’d just had his pocket picked. Then he turned it over, to reveal the wells for the Stones empty. They shimmered, beautiful and lethal, inches from me, in the exact configuration of their original placement. Tony finally seemed to have registered who was holding onto him. “Chrissy—no, get ‘way—”

I held on all the more tightly. “Grown-ass woman, remember?” _Into thy hand I commit my spirit_ , I prayed, pulled my right arm from around him, and slapped my palm down on the back of Tony’s hand, where the Mind Stone lay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As with the battle of Wakanda in Fireblade, I wanted to keep the girl squad, but had to make it happen more organically.
> 
> I felt like the daughters of Thanos were robbed by Marvel when they didn't really get a chance to go after their abuser themselves, so I gave them, including 2014 Nebula, their own moment to call him out. It also gave me a few precious seconds to set up what's coming!
> 
> Don't panic though. I promise, while Chrissy does have her own part to play here, things are not going Mary Sue by any stretch of the imagination. LOL


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chrissy makes the biggest presentation of her life, new allies bring needed information, and the Avengers take the plunge.
> 
> AKA, the chapter I've been writing toward all along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (deep breath) Ohhhkay, here we go. This is a long one, so strap in! From the external focus of the battle chapters, we turn inward, and this whole chapter takes place in a couple of seconds, objective time. (Time Stone sniffs in disdain)
> 
> You haven’t seen this in a while, but the double colons (::) which I used in previous installments to mark out texts or emails is going to mark out mental communications in this chapter. 
> 
> Also, in this chapter Chrissy discovers the Stones are indeed sentient, so as she usually does for entities who don't adhere to traditional human gender conventions (the Cloak, for example) she uses the pronouns they and them for them.

The Stones’ reaction to my contact was instantaneous. Their serpentine tracers of power wound around my wrist, and a hiss of pain escaped through my teeth despite my best efforts. I felt myself flush and sweat; Extremis must have been freaking out trying to protect me, with all six stones within spitting distance, and yet at the same time it seemed drawn to their forces. 

The stone that had wakened it was pressed against my skin. I could feel it—okay, not _it_ , because Tony was wrong for once; this near, it was plain the Infinity Stones were sentient entities, so like the Cloak I shifted my mode of thinking about them. I felt the Mind Stone, could pick them out from the others, and amazingly, they felt me too. They half recognized me, I could tell, and they were puzzled; this wasn’t their universe and they hadn’t met me. I wanted to explain, but there was no time. 

::time?:: Another stone reacted with what in a human would have been an offended sniff. Had to be the Time Stone; the response even bore a whiff of Strange’s customary snoot. ::we are infinity. time is irrelevant when in congress with us::

Mind was pulsing through me now, putting together my story without my having to tell: Killian’s torture, Tony and Bruce’s work to counter it, and my efforts to partner with the virus when it returned. Shuri’s guess had been right, apparently; Mind showed me that Extremis had in fact been mutating, only an occasional weak thing, until our universe’s Mind Stone attacked me and kicked it into full protective gear. Now, my little viral friends were fighting this cosmic dream team’s power, trying to heal where their energy was burning me. It couldn’t do that for long though. I was still only human. It was running in place and losing ground. My power might burn me up trying to save me. I could almost see its orange glow, as though through cracks between the cells in my arm, and feel the pull and tug.

I could feel something else, though, someone else, and knew him without having to ask. Tony. He wasn’t a telepath, and neither was I, but with both of us linked to the stones, I could feel his plea: ::Just let the fighting be over. Take HIM and his goons away, let the world, the universe, be safe for everybody::

::Please:: I begged them. ::Rein in your power, don’t hurt him, please::

::we cannot:: a deep rumble uttered. It held close-mastered force behind it, so I guessed it was the Power Stone. ::not and do what he wishes. we could shield him though, and probably should. others who attempted to wield us commanded, but he asks. whether that would be enough, who can say?::

::I must have the sacrifice I foresaw:: This voice (using the term loosely) was rich and resonant. _A sacrifice?_ I wondered, and that’s when it hit me. We had all assumed the Soul Stone had meant Peter’s loss, occurring out of order, was their due. But we were wrong. Time meant nothing to the Stones. Soul had seen this moment, and expected Tony to use the power against Thanos, and die, his soul the fee for their service. 

::No, please, no!:: I begged. Soul’s focus turned to me and engulfed me, and I flung my mind and heart open. My love for Tony was up front, certainly not hidden, but that wasn’t my point. ::The universe needs him, desperately. When greed and selfishness make tools of the vulnerable, Tony fixes what they break:: I showed the Stones how HYDRA had used the Maximoffs and Bucky to hurt others, against their wills, and Tony had reached out and repaired what was broken. ::He was used himself, by someone he loved and trusted, to hurt people, and he made himself a hero to fix that. Your counterparts were used too!:: I pressed. ::Thanos used them to hurt this entire universe, and would do even worse. If he got his way you’d never get back to your verse, because no one would be left to take you, or know to do it when he built his world of fantasy slaves. We need Tony. He fixes things. It’s—it’s in his nature. He’s a healer of the most profound kind::

I pled my case, without opening my mouth, in that timeless dangling place. I used all the skill I had honed over all the years I had spent building things with words, and every syllable was a prayer that it would be enough. 

It wasn’t. ::what Power says is true:: a light, almost ethereal tone like a bell sang; the Space Stone, I thought. ::we cannot deny what we are, and no human can sustain it, even though he is far stronger than he should be::

What they meant by that, I didn’t know or care to pursue just now. ::Take my strength then:: I argued. ::I didn’t ask for it, and I’d be fine with giving it up for this, to save the universe, and my brother::

::it doesn’t work that way:: Time again, with that hint of condescension. ::humans are thus, I know, having journeyed much with them. they ask and will not accept a denial for an answer. my sib Power may wish it otherwise, but we cannot draw a line with our power and say thus far and no more. the wielder pays the price. and if you stay, you may die too.:: 

::or be bound:: Soul put in. ::how would you fare, little mortal, bound to me for all eternity?::

I couldn’t hold back a snort. ::Oh, now you’re just fooling around. There has to be some limit to your power, and I believe my soul is already bound to one more powerful than even you::

Soul actually laughed, and not even mockingly. ::see, then:: they said, and suddenly my mind felt like I’d been locked in the trunk of an old sedan forever and finally freed. My awareness exploded with them, and I could feel sparks of consciousness all over the place, some guttering low like dying briquettes in a charcoal grill, others bright and fierce like Tony’s beside me. 

Still others sparkled like crystal, and I felt myself being drawn toward one that seemed oddly familiar. ::Wanda!:: I called, then wished I hadn’t—what if she were fighting and I’d distracted her?

Time’s sigh was almost audible. ::uh, time? remember? none of note has passed in the material realm. she has just roused from the blast our past wielder wrought::

By then, Wanda had turned, metaphysically, and touched me and the Stones, her surprise and amazement washing over me. Mind’s curiosity about her was evident. ::I know her too, but I do not:: they noted, which made sense; in the verse Steve had brought them from, HYDRA hadn’t yet gotten its nasty fascist hands on them and used them to experiment on the twins. ::but you see, it is as my kin say. our power cannot be contained, only endured. why will you not concede this and go?::

::Because as cruel as Thanos is, it’d be far more cruel for me to leave my brother to stand alone against him. I won’t. I _won’t_. I don’t believe in coincidence. I survived this far for a purpose, and I will stay, live or die, to save Tony, or bear witness to his courage, or go with him into the next world::

Alongside me, I sensed Wanda taking it all in, her powers keen and resonant. ::Who can say whether God brought you to this place for just such a time as this?:: she thought quietly enough that it had to be aimed just at me.

The Stones seemed, frankly, a bit taken aback by my vehemence. ::mortals:: a dark liquid voice said. ::I’ve learned a little bit about them too, from being borne within one:: That had to be Reality, then. ::they seem so puny, yet their love is so steadfast::

::Wanda, move:: I replied to her just as softly, while the Stones argued. ::Otherwise you’re liable to get caught up in a backwash of energy::

::No!:: Her distress was plain, now that she understood. ::I would not let Vision die alone. I won’t let you::

::We’re way behind the lines!:: I argued. :Nobody could get to us in time.::

::Nobody has to.:: Brilliant threads shot out from my perception of her mind, like the most delicate web Peter could spin. They radiated all over the battlefield toward the clearest of the sparks scattered across the grounds, and every time one made contact, I could feel another mind. Wanda, I realized, was using her powers to pull into a telepathic loop the people who loved us, to let them say goodbye.

Pepper’s confusion was palpable, but her mind went to Tony’s swiftly, almost automatically, and wrapped around him as though to shield him from whatever was to come. The other five Avengers came next, and in turn, they pulled other minds along, the people they were closest to. As they passed, I caught snatches of thought, through my link with Wanda and the Mind Stone. Steve, promising Tony that when the threat came they would face it as one; Peter, understanding and horror engulfing him and flashing him back to other losses; Rhodey, his thoughts spinning through so, so many scrapes and escapades he and Tony had shared.

Bucky’s mind enveloped me, and I could almost hear him yell out loud in distress. My heart tore wide open, because he loved me. I could feel it, he loved me so damn much, and I poured my love out over him in return. I couldn’t back off, though; I couldn’t turn away and not use the gift I’d been given. God bless him, he felt that from me too, even though I couldn’t put it into words (none of this was happening in words, I guess, looking back, though it certainly felt like it at the time) and he honored my decision. ::You know I know what that’s like, doll:: his thoughts whispered. ::being stripped of your will. I’d never do that to you, even if it means losing you::

More minds poured into the loop. Thor pulled Loki in, and I could feel the fear he tried so hard to hide, left over from the torment he had suffered from the Stones of our verse. Despite that, his will was set, and he pulled Brunhilde in, and the other Asgardians and their alien friends, and Thor brought M’Baku, startled for a flash and then determined. A tug from Rhodey’s mind brought Carol into the circle, her spirit ablaze. Wanda found Okoye and drew her in, my teacher so strong and solid, who pulled in W’Kabi and Aneka—and Ayo, back from Thanos’ doom—and all the Dora Milaje, my battle-sisters. 

When I sensed Wanda reach for Strange, he seemed to try to pull away, and I had an instant to feel fury—was he really going there, to protect himself and leave Tony hanging out to dry, after all his big talk about the one path to win? Even the Sorcerer Supreme couldn’t withstand all these other minds, plus all six Infinity Stones, though; his mind joined the loop, and in turn pulled Wong and the rest of his order. For a breath, or a piece of one, I thought my mind even brushed against an assemblage of minds that weren’t physically present, and my fancy was confirmed when the Ancient One’s gentle presence expressed a sort of satisfied approval.

Shuri came in, with her incandescent intellect on fire to comprehend what was happening, and of course T’Challa was with her. Something seemed to click, when he entered the loop, and again I could feel another group of minds I couldn’t identify. T’Challa could, though. ::Baba!:: he cried loudly enough I could perceive it as plainly as a yell across a field, and then a disbelieving ::Erik?::

Beside a sturdy and wise personage leading the new band, I caught a sense of a reckless grin and a spirit all up for a fight with no holds barred. ::Yo, cuz. The bad blood between us? That’s chump change, beside the saving of all the things. Can’t be arguing over how to paint the kitchen, when the damn house is burning down.:: 

I started to pray the same prayer I had spoken years ago, on that night when it was morning in Afghanistan and Pepper and I sat glued to an illicit radio feed, a prayer for angels to surround Tony. Then I stopped and looked around, figuratively speaking, and thought _Oh, wait, never mind, you already have_. The mass of souls gathered around were Tony’s angels, the people who respected and loved him directly or otherwise. Maybe we couldn’t protect him, but we could make damn sure he passed from us surrounded by love. 

One was different from all the others, and didn’t seem to have been drawn in by Wanda’s work. Instead, it rose like a tiny ball of fizzy golden fireworks from where Tony and Pepper’s minds were twined together. Curious as I always am, I stretched to contact the new arrival and nearly yelled out loud. ::JARVIS!::

::Miss Everhart. This is—irregular, and quite interesting:: Behind him trailed a burst of emerald energy, and two tiny silvery sprites zipping excitedly around. The implications took my breath, metaphorically speaking.

The circle widened. Rhodey pulled Nebula in. In turn she pulled her double, and her sister, and Rocket. (Rocket drew Scott, who brought another whose mind was pressed as tightly to him as I was to Bucky; it had to be his Hope.) With Nebula and Rocket came several other minds, the rest of their crew; and that was when everything changed.

::FUCK! Yes!:: someone whooped; I didn’t know him, but an irrepressible spirit danced through the words. ::Drax! Rocket, remember Ronan? One Stone, four of us, then. Six Stones now, yeah, but this many people, hell yeah, we can do this!::

Another mind touched him, then reached out, gentle but powerful. The contact brought the name Mantis, and the image of the gal with the antennae, sharing how Gamora’s gunslinger lover Quill and the Guardians had faced an opponent with the Power Stone, seized it and joined hands to use it without being annihilated by it. 

The Stones were listening too. ::This should work, shouldn’t it?:: I asked them, frantic and terrified by the sudden hope kindling in my heart, but keeping my head to plead my case one more time. ::Physically we’re spread across the battlefield, but we _are_ joined, in mind, by Wanda’s powers and my contact with you. If your power was spread out among us all…maybe Tony can wield you, and save you and us all, and not die.::

A whisper of thought from Quill drifted past me. ::It’s gotta work…this is my fault, Stark tried to stop me on Titan, I’m not gonna let him die because I screwed up:: 

::it may:: Power agreed. ::along with his unusual strength, that may suffice. for our part, we will do all we can to honor the respect he gave us by asking our help instead of forcing it, and the love of these many for him. do this, then::

With the suddenness of a gunshot, I was fully aware again of my body, and of the pain rippling up my arm as Extremis fought it. I opened my eyes—didn’t really remember having closed them—and was vaguely surprised to find nothing in the scene before me had changed. Time had been right—if anything, no more than a second or two had elapsed. My left arm was still wrapped around Tony’s waist, and the echo of Thanos’ arrogant words still hung in the air, an absurd counterpoint to the shock just washing across his face. My mind was being drawn more closely into the link with all the others, by Wanda and Mantis. I had to laugh when I sensed the reflexive snark in Tony’s response to the Titan. ::Inevitable? Bitch, you thought. Hi, inevitable. I am Iron Man::

I couldn’t tell, really, if he thought it or said it. It didn’t matter; in response to his defiance, I felt cries rise from the minds around us. 

::Avengers assemble!::

::Wakanda forever!::

::I am Groot!::

::For Ovette, for Kamaria!::

::For Asgard!::

Steve’s mental voice rose above all the others, then, with one word. ::Together::. 

Through Wanda and me, he reached for Tony; and Clint and Nat, Thor and Bruce followed, like a laying on of hands on Sunday morning. They echoed him, and other voices took it up. 

::Together. ::

_::Together!::_

We were one, in that instant out of time, all of us from across the universe: the immovable object, the tree planted by the water that said WE SHALL NOT BE MOVED. Bucky’s consciousness pressed so closely it was hard to feel any distance between us, and whispered for me alone, ::Together, doll::.

My hand slid back a little and wrapped around Tony’s wrist as he raised his trembling gauntleted hand to the heavens, before the dawning horror in the eyes of the one who would have destroyed us all. The tips of my fingers remained pressed to Mind’s smooth surface. In the instant before he snapped, I thought, with all the strength I had left, ::Till the train runs out of track, _ubhuti_. I love you, Bucky:: and hoped they both heard. 

The world whited out again, the way it had when Bruce snapped. This time, though, it seemed to go on for an eternity, sweeping through and around me like nothing I knew or could have imagined. I wondered if this was what God felt, and just before the white faded to black and took all conscious thought with it, I thought I heard a very soft voice say ::a little::.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here you go. A prime theory before Endgame about how the Stones would be handled was set up by Marvel itself in Guardians 1, and then they didn't use it. Fine, dammit. I did, just not physically.
> 
> Wanda's thought while Chrissy is pleading with the Stones is a quote from the Old Testament book of Esther, which, if you aren't familiar with it, is about a woman in the right place at the right time to risk her life to save her people. 
> 
> The Stones are infinite, so I see no reason why the past Sorcerers and Black Panthers (including, yes, Killmonger!) couldn't have been summoned to help the final push against Thanos. The Ancient One has a right to be a little smug, I think, because she was right! When push came to shove, it wasn’t Chrissy's sword skill or even Extremis that made a difference, it was her ability to put into words what needed to be said to make the Stones understand human love and courage and need, make them see they have a stake in this too, and get them on board with the plan Quill proposes. 
> 
> The consciousnesses that come with JARVIS are FRIDAY and the bots, in case you weren't sure. <3
> 
> Finally, Chrissy isn't sure, but I am: Tony snarks his ass off mentally, as usual, but he does not speak aloud at all in this scene. It was a deliberate choice on my part, partly because with everybody backing him it wouldn't be appropriate for him to say 'I am Iron Man'. For this team, 'together' seemed best. And it's also my small way of honoring RDJ, who wanted it this way. 
> 
> Tune in this weekend to see if the team's plan works and Tony survives. (lol)


	33. Chapter 33

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Tony snaps...

Awareness returned slowly. I didn’t move; staying still while I reassembled my brain seemed like the best course of action, and for a breath or two I couldn’t really remember what all had been going on. My senses started to wake up: heated smooth metal under my cheek, a weird pungent-sweet-burnt smell in my nostrils, silence all around and inside my head…

_Inside? What?_

My thoughts, moving molasses-slow, slid to a complete halt on that, and then jolted to fully awake. I remembered everything, including the cause of the building throb of pain in my right arm. My other arm still clung to Tony and my face pressed to his suit at the back of his neck. When my eyes popped open, I could see that the metal stopped barely an inch from the end of my nose, shredded and impossibly smoldering a little. Carefully, I lifted my head just enough to look over his shoulder. The gauntlet’s nanites had totally peeled away from the force of the snap, and were lying on the ground, beside his burnt and motionless hand. 

My hand lay on his wrist, the sleeve of my uniform burned away; even vibranium was no match for Infinity Stones. Vaguely, I thought I should remember to tell Shuri that; it seemed like something she would want to know, that we had finally found something vibranium couldn’t stand up to. My bare arm was blistered and aching, but honestly, it wasn’t as bad as I would have expected if somebody had asked me an hour ago what the result of touching an Infinity Stone in action would be.

Tony’s arm, though…it was a wreck. The flesh was scorched, even black in spots, all the way up. I shifted just enough to turn my head toward him. The right side of his face and neck were seared, and the normal skin I could see was unnaturally pale against it. He was so still, I couldn’t tell if he was breathing. The burns didn’t appear to have extended to his eyes, but they were closed, and again time seemed to stand still, though this time from the terror that grabbed my heart and squeezed. Where the fingers of my right hand lay, I would under normal circumstances have been able to shift just a hair and find his pulse, but the squelchy meat that I felt there couldn’t possibly have any functional blood vessels. 

My left arm was locked around his waist so tightly I wondered if the power of the Stones’ wielding had melted my clothing, or skin, and stuck us together. Afraid to move, afraid not to move, I had almost talked myself into trying to let go when the familiar sound of repulsors cut through the eerie quiet and came closer and closer. With a thump, Rescue landed and the faceplate vanished to reveal Pepper’s stricken face. She put her hand on his chest where the nanite housing flickered blue-white. “JARVIS, life functions?” she asked him.

After a couple of seconds that lasted way too long, JARVIS replied, “Sir’s vital signs are weak but stable.” I wanted to laugh, cry, scream for joy, and I really didn’t need to do any of the above considering Tony was leaning on me.

Pepper was so focused where she needed to be focused that I didn’t think she even realized I was there, especially when Tony’s eyes opened and he took an actual, visible, tangible breath. He let it out with a gasping little laugh. “Hey, Pep,” he croaked.

“Hey yourself.” Her eyes were watery, but her gaze was steadfast.

“Everybody good?” He grunted, shifted, and managed to get his legs from underneath him and stretched out. The movement was a relief to see, but not nearly as much, I have to admit, as the sound of him swearing under his breath in the process. “Fuck, that hurts,” he grumbled.

“We’re fine,” she soothed, and I could see on her face the moment when it really hit home: he wasn’t dead, and from the sound of it, wasn’t anywhere near it. “And so are you,” she added more firmly. “Help’s on the way. You can rest now.”

Tony’s head bobbed once, weakly, and his good left hand rose to cover hers on his chest, then lifted with an obvious effort toward her. Pep raised her right hand and guided him to trace the shoulder of her suit and come to rest against her cheek, covering his fingers with hers. “This is…so hot,” he rasped. Tears streaked down her face, but incongruously, she began to giggle, and he got out a weary chuckle in return. It sounded like a private joke, and I felt almost like I was intruding on a private moment between my dearest friends. 

Very carefully, I tried to move, thinking I might be able to slide aside and lay him down, to rest as Pep had suggested until medical help arrived. At my first shift, though, Tony let out a faint groan, and I froze so as not to jostle him. Pepper’s eyes flew up to meet mine and widened. I gave her a tiny nod, which was about all I could manage, but Lord knew, Extremis and I could handle my business. Getting Tony where he needed to be was priority one in my book.

I persuaded my neck to move, and scanned the battlefield. It was even dustier than it had been moments before, though the smoke and haze was starting to clear, and with a gulp I pieced together what the dust was. Tony had snapped Thanos’ army, and hopefully the big lump of meat himself, into ash. _Fucking poetic justice_ , I thought, and made another mental note, this time to compliment him on his keen sense of irony. 

There wasn’t a lot of motion near us yet, but I spied Steve getting to his feet and surveying his surroundings. His look of triumph lasted until his turn brought him to face us; his jaw dropped then, and a look of sheer horror overtook him. I caught his eye and made a little gesture with my head, to get him to come over. My face wasn’t hurting, and I didn’t think it was burned, but a smile felt strange and stiff. I smiled anyway as he started our way, slowly at first, then breaking into a trot.

A slim form dropped to the ground and blocked my view, but it was Peter, so it wasn’t like I was going to bitch. “Mr. Stark?” he gasped. “Mr. Stark? Tony?” That was amusing; I’d never heard him call Tony by his first name before. “We won, Mr. Stark, are you okay?? That was—that was _epic_. Could you hear me? With your mind, I mean. It was like Luke dangling at the end of _Empire Strikes Back_ , except like, more.”

Tony’s eyes had fluttered closed again, but he opened them now. Other than a small streak of burnt skin along the corner nearest me, his mouth looked unhurt too, and it quirked into a ghost of the indulgent grin I’d seen him shoot at his motormouthed intern countless times. “Kid,” he warned in a hoarse whisper, “I better not…be Leia in that scenario.”

Peter’s laugh held a high-pitched hint of hysteria, and his hands flapped as though he wanted to touch Tony but was afraid to. The issue was resolved when repulsors whined again. Rhodey landed and gently took the boy by the shoulders and moved him into the custody of Natasha. As usual, she had appeared from seeming thin air, and this time there was no hesitation when she took Peter into a sheltering embrace while her eyes examined Tony. Rhodey bent, where he stood beside Pepper still kneeling, and looked Tony over too. He reached out, and Tony’s hand met his halfway. Neither of them said a word, but their matching smiles didn’t need words to accompany them.

Strange landed the next moment, the Cloak’s edges moving with the same air of agitation that Peter’s hands had shown. Rhodey stepped back and offered Pep a hand up so Strange could move close and look Tony over. He lifted an eyebrow at me, and I returned the favor but didn’t move; Tony was slumped against me, seemingly drifting in and out of consciousness. Not as if I could blame him—my focus came and went too, and I let it go for a minute, until something touched my forearm and I sucked back a yip of pain. The Cloak was barely brushing my burnt skin. Above it, Strange glared at me. “Christine, what is this?”

“Um, my arm?” I deadpanned.

He passed a shaky hand over his face. “Sometimes, if I didn’t know better, I would swear on every sacred book in Kamar-Taj that you and Stark were true blood kin. You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I think I do.” I summoned my last shreds of stamina. “Nobody was close. I felt him take the Stones, I knew what he was going to do, and I wasn’t about to let him do it alone. When I touched the Mind Stone, I was able to talk, more or less, to them all. I tried to tell them how much we needed him, I begged them to spare him. They said they couldn’t, not and do what he asked of them. They tried to get me to leave, showed me their power—when they did that I found Wanda, mentally, and she used her powers to bring everybody into a loop, to—to say goodbye. But Nebula’s team had used a Stone, before she was with them, by joining together, and we persuaded the Stones the same strategy might work on a grander scale. Seems it did.” I met his glare with one of my own. “Small thanks to you. _You_ didn’t want to come. I felt you try to pull away.”

“I…” He actually looked discomfited for a second, before he shook his head. “No, not that. We’ll talk about this later. Right now, both you and Stark need medical attention. Wong has opened a portal to Wakanda, and the king has sent for medics and conveyances.”

“Take care of Tony first,” I said on a suddenly tired exhalation. ”I’ll be okay.”

Pepper and Rhodey were staring at my arm with almost identical looks of horror. “Chrissy,” Pepper gasped, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know—I thought you just got to him first, after…”

I blinked gritty eyes. “Oh. Heh. No, been here the whole time. Well, what, a handful of seconds, right? Please, I love y’all, but don’t fuss. My little viral EMT buddies are working on this, I’m sure.” I attempted to lift my hand, but nothing below my elbow wanted to respond, and I flinched despite my best effort. The Cloak moved their attention to my shoulder, and patted me there. “Thanks, darlin’,” I said to them with a smile.

Probably roused by the conversation, Tony stirred and peered over at Strange crouched before him. “Ahh, Marcus Welby MD on call, huh?" he mumbled. "Nice…t’ have you back, asshole.”

“Nice to have you alive, douchebag,” Strange retorted, but with no real animosity at all. “Be still, transportation is coming to take you to help.”

Tony made a feeble scoffing noise and his heels scraped against the ground as he moved his legs. “Don’t need ‘n ambulance. I can get m’self wherever. Arm doesn’t ev’n hurt.”

So quickly I barely had time to squeak, the Cloak slid under my injured arm and lifted it aside, hovering and cradling it while Strange examined Tony’s. “The nerves are too badly damaged to register pain,” he said.

“Hmph,” Tony grunted. “Y’r bedside manner hasn’t…improved any.” He made another go at moving, and this time got his butt an inch or two off the ground before he gasped and let out a small cry of pain.

“Tony!” Pepper snapped, her worry translating into sharpness. “Stay right there!”

“Lean back, I’ve got you,” I added. 

He halted, and a confused frown took over his face. My heart jolted for a breath, in fear the trauma of wielding the Stones had damaged his mind or memory. “Chrissy?” he said, questioning, then tilted his head my way and jerked it a couple of times, as if he had water in his ear from swimming. 

That right ear was half melted; it hurt to look at it, and I really got, for maybe the first time ever, the real meaning of wanting to kiss something and make it better. “You can’t hear me, can you?” I said in realization. I unfolded my left leg from under me with a grunt and stretched it out to better support him, while I finally coaxed my left arm to release his waist. I raised my hand to his cheek and nudged him around to face me. “I’m right here, hot rod.”

When our eyes met, his widened and his mouth opened a little, as if everything was coming back to him in a rush. He started to wiggle his butt to turn toward me, which seemed to take most of what little energy he had left. At the same time I worked with the Cloak for a minute, figuring out I could lift my injured arm from the shoulder. We ended up with Tony lying against me, his head on my good shoulder and my bum arm plopped in his lap. Strange reclaimed his wingman (wing-garment?) and rose, stepping away to confer with Rhodey and Pepper. 

Tony stared at me as I settled, something like a weird kind of awe in his face. “What?” I said in a mock-irritable tone to lighten the moment. It needed lightening, and finally could; we had pulled the caper off, Thanos was done and dusted, and Tony was alive. 

“You’re here. You really…were here?”

“Well, yeah, I said I wasn’t going anywhere.”

“No, I mean…did, um…” ‘He made a face and tapped his temple, seeming a bit brighter for the moment. “Did I hear something…going on upstairs here, or was I hallucinating?”

I wondered how much of the events of those final frenetic few seconds he had heard or remembered. “No,” I said carefully, “you were not hallucinating.”

My question was answered when he replied. “You…you talked the fucking Infinity Stones into cooperating, cornbread.” Tony shook his head slowly, with a small wince and a loopy little grin. “What’ve I said all these years? Words…tha’s your superpower.” Still smiling, he gazed around at the wreckage and listened to the sounds of people finally afforded time to reunite. “Could you ever have imagined this, that night we met?”

“In Vegas, you mean? When all you wanted was to hit on me, and all I wanted was a gotcha interview to push my career forward?” We looked at each other for a moment. Tony started to laugh shakily, and I joined in. I opened my mouth to make a mild argument that I was far from being the one responsible for a good resolution here, but before I could formulate a reply, Tony seemed to run out of steam again. His eyes slid shut and his head dropped against my shoulder, but I could feel his breath on my neck, so I didn’t panic again. I took advantage of the moment to look around and see if I could spy Bucky, but sitting down, it was hard to see over the piles of smoking rubble.

I shouldn’t have worried. Of course, he found me. Steve and Thor dashed toward the spot where we sat, but Bucky blew past both of them like they were on a smoke break and he was late to clock in. He dropped beside me with a crash that made me wince and despair for his knees, supersoldier or no supersoldier. “Damnit, you crazy woman,” he started, and then shook his head and kissed me. “I love you,” he panted when we parted.

“Ditto,” I said, and he snorted.

“You gotta go quote movies at me?”

“Got to stay on brand,” I shrugged, or tried to, though with one shoulder hurt and the other holding Tony up, it didn’t get very far.

Tony opened one eye. “Olaf,” he greeted him, his words slurring from fatigue. “Good t’see you.”

“How you doin’, shellhead?”

“Alive, surprisingly enough.”

Bucky grinned. “Me an’ Stevie’ve about decided you can’t be killed. You got a paintin’ stashed in the sub-basement of the tower takin’ all the damage?”

Tony managed another weak but genuine chuckle. “Shit, glad you said that. Reminds me…a ton of Howard’s journals and stuff ‘re down there, I’ve been sayin’ for years I need to go through ‘em. Hope I survive, or you 'n’ cornbread an’ Pep’ll get stuck with the job.”

I scoffed. “We’d help anyway, but you are definitely not weaseling out on the grounds of death. What a pathetic attempt at an excuse. Bucky, I bet he’s never told you about the day he found that stash of science. It was the same day Vanity Fair fired me, Tony and Pepper got into an argument over which one was going to offer me a job first…” It wasn’t the smoothest redirection, but telling the story distracted both of them, and distracted me too from the increasing throb of pain in my arm and side, while we waited for help.

Pepper and Rhodey returned, and Bucky stood to greet them both with a handshake and shoulder smack for Rhodey and a big hug from Pep. Tony drifted off again, and we let him, figuring he needed to reserve what energy he had. When a speeder shot through a portal from the Golden City and halted beside us, Rhodey stepped up to help the medics lift Tony from my lap, just far enough to slide a grav-stretcher under him. ‘Just enough’ was still too much, though; Tony flinched and cried out, and Rhodey flinched even harder at his obvious pain. The Cloak whisked off Strange’s shoulders, slid under Tony, and lifted him evenly, in a way the most loving human arms simply couldn’t do. He was starting to shiver, probably shock from the burns setting in, and the Cloak wrapped around him like it was swaddling a baby.

As the bewildered medics and their magical assistant settled him, Tony roused, though, and called Rhodey’s name. “The Stones,” he gasped. “Take—care of ‘em? The suit should…hold up long enough for you to get ‘em back in containment. I’m…puttin’ you in charge, honeybear…” Rhodey clasped Tony’s good hand, before the medics shooed him away and took off with Pepper flying beside them, and promised, sniffling.

I looked around for the remains of Tony’s gauntlet. “Bucky, you better not be sitting on—” I began just as I located them lying barely a foot from my knee. Their light was fading, but I could still faintly sense the Mind Stone, and through them, the others. 

A brush of dark force touched my awareness: the Reality Stone, red like blood, red like Tony’s suit. ::see what we saw:: they called to me, ::in him whom you name brother:: 

In another timeless burst, they showed me the reality they knew, in the instant of the snap: the reality in Tony’s mind and heart, where his armor was his love for his friends and his family and ours for him, his strength unwavering, and his will to protect so resolute even the Stones couldn’t have budged it if they had wanted to. ::thank you,:: I told them, my heart fit to bust with joy. ::thank you all:: 

::be certain that we are returned to our places and times:: Mind cautioned. ::especially Soul. they get tetchy about their rules, and they expected to claim your brother, so they are pouting::

In the background, I could hear Soul grumble. :: I, tetchy? what about Time? sixteen million and some-odd indeed! what is that to infinity? and I do not pout. my rule is immutable, a soul for a soul. this is certainly not what I anticipated; but if I am returned to my moment, then all is well, for in effect I was never taken. so you see, my Mindful sib, I expect no sacrifice::

As the contact faded, Mind retorted, ::you are a rules lawyer, Soul, that is what humans would call you and that is what you are. I say what I say:: 

“Doll? You okay?” I pulled myself back to the world, to find Bucky and Rhodey united in concerned looks. That was scarier than Thanos, to be perfectly honest.

“Fine, just—thanking them.” I nodded toward the ruined gauntlet Rhodey was crouched over. The tears he had been fighting a moment before were sliding down his cheeks now, but with a hopeful little smile playing counterpoint.

Rhodey just nodded. “Another speeder’s coming for you, Okoye said it’ll be here in a sec.”

I squinted toward the portal. “No need for that. I’m not hurt nearly as much as Tony, I can probably—” I pulled my outstretched leg back under me and tried to stand. That, well, was not a wise move. My ears started to roar, and the surroundings that looked eerie enough turned into a photographic negative. I felt myself sway, before my feet left the ground altogether; but instead of smacking into the dirt, I seemed to hover. _Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to ever happen to me. Wouldn’t even be the weirdest thing to happen to me today_ , I mused, then coaxed my eyes back open. 

Thankfully, no eldritch magic was levitating me. I was just lying in Bucky’s arms, scooped up like a bride crossing the threshold, with my legs dangling over his metal arm. He held me close and hummed in my ear, and my tired brain filled in the lyrics. _Oh, my love, my darling, I hunger for your touch…_ “Sap,” I mumbled fondly, and let him carry me to help.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I can officially now add to this fic the tags I append to every fic I write in which Tony survives Endgame: #the Russos whomst, and #idk them. hehe! (I have 2 or 3 more ideas for fics using those tags, and like the ones before them, every one is plausible and completely different)
> 
> The order in which people reach Tony's side post-Snap is different in our verse, for obvious reasons, than canon. Why did Marvel bring Pepper in last? so she could see him die. Pardon my language, but screw that. Pepper would be there before anybody else, and in this story, she is, so she can be the first to learn he's alive. (his comment to her was borrowed from RDJ in a hilarious behind the scenes shot from Iron Man 3, which you may be familiar with. lol. If not it's here, and the line is at 4:15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrwDGpabMRo)
> 
> The movie Chrissy quotes at Bucky is Ghost, and the song he hums to her at the end of the chapter comes from that classic love story also. :)
> 
> Tony and the Cloak were going to work together in an early draft of Infinity War, but it didn't happen, so I got them a moment together here.
> 
> This is not the end of the story btw! there are loose ends to wrap up, many small, but at least one big one. Oh, and a wedding to plan. (smirks)


	34. Chapter 34

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The defenders return to Wakanda, for treatment, debriefing and reunions.

I didn’t black out again, but the jostling of getting me situated on the stretcher, as much as Bucky tried to minimize it, hurt like hell, so I dredged up an old trick I’d learned as a teenager to cope with cramps. Instead of tensing and fighting it, I closed my eyes, coaxed my body to go limp and tried to observe the pain, thinking instead about everything else going on around me: sounds of laughter, whiffs of smoke and rumbles of machines from the farthest reaches of space.

Whatever people may say, mental strategies are not long-term pain solutions. By the time I felt the air around me turn clean and clear, and the sun slant warm against my undamaged skin, my arm was hurting like hell. Now that I was on the stretcher, though, it lifted me off the speeder and floated me into the medical center of the Wakandan royal compound. I opened my eyes briefly to look around at familiar walls and corridors, now bustling again as they had in my early days studying here, and felt true relaxation sweep over me.

For a few minutes, I guess I did fade out, and came back to myself lying in an exam bay. Bucky’s voice was near, talking quietly in Russian, and another I knew well replied: Wanda. It was weirdly reassuring, and I lay still to listen and give silent thanks. That worked until Wanda switched to English. “I see someone smiling over there,” she teased and patted me.

The first thing I saw when I looked up was Bucky’s sweet face looking down. “Darn it,” he complained. “Thought I was gonna get to make like the prince in that Walt Disney movie and kiss the sleepin’ beauty.”

“No reason you can’t do that anyway,” I invited. 

We got a quick kiss in while Wanda raised the head of the stretcher, and they began to catch me up. Tony and Bruce were both being treated nearby. There were no other casualties; somehow, Tony must had had the presence of mind to ask the Stones to restore those who had fallen to preserve them, and the cranky entities had granted that request too, returning them to their comrades while our foes had crumbled to dust. “Thanos went last,” Bucky recounted with a definite air of satisfaction. “Dunno if he was just the toughest, or if somebody planned it that way, so he’d see all the shit he’d wanted fall apart around him and know he’d lost for good.”

He also reported that when Shuri had learned Pietro and Peter were Tony’s ‘science babies’, she had drafted them to assist her. That didn’t take much coercion, I was sure, and was proven right when she bustled in a few moments later with them trailing eagerly in her wake, Peter in borrowed tunic and trousers, both carrying armloads of bandages. I greeted them all with excited one-armed hugs, and Wanda excused herself while a brace of nurses supervised by the princess set to work. They laid my burned arm in a tub of cool water and gently picked the few remaining scraps of my uniform sleeve away. “It looks a little better,” I told Shuri, “but not as much as I would expect, and it still hurts…well, quite a bit. Then again, Infinity Stones.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Indeed,” she deadpanned. “These should help on all fronts.” The bandages, as it developed, were impregnated with a blend of silver and vibranium, and the nurses wrapped them over the blistered and scorched areas. “We will check on these tomorrow and change them,” she said while a nurse handed me a waterproof covering for use when bathing or showering. “Hopefully Extremis will be in full effect by then, to heal them. Until then, you must hydrate and rest.”

“I’ll make certain she does, princess,” Bucky promised and glared at me. I glared right back.

“I’ll do as much resting as I can, _umhlobo_ ,” I countered to Shuri. “I promise to drink plenty of liquid, but I want to check on Tony, and Bruce, and I have to get out of what’s left of this uniform. It’s risky enough with all those folks on the battlefield seeing me, knowing who I am, and somebody spilling the beans. Plus, I probably stink.”

Peter grinned. “You’ve got a secret identity too? Cool, cool, I won’t feel all alone then. We can call each other by our made-up names. But nobody else is gonna know about how badass you were!”

“A shame,” Pietro sighed, “but I suppose we can do our part to keep that quiet.” In less serious circumstances, I wouldn’t trust those two to keep a secret as far as I could drop-kick them, but given the situation, I was a tad more hopeful.

Bucky took me around to our suite. I insisted on walking, but he hovered with all the attitude of being poised to snatch me up if I had another sudden drop. That, naturally, made me all the more determined to get there under my own steam. Once there, he helped me out of my rags, gently teasing how, of all the people in the universe I could have around, I had the one who knew all the tricks to functioning with one arm. We got the watershield on my arm, which was stiff and sore but not nearly as painful as it had been, and Bucky shucked his grimy battle gear and got me into the shower. He washed every inch I couldn’t reach; I did all I could, and tried to apologize because I knew he had to be tired too. “Rather kiss than hear you apologize,” he murmured, and followed through on the loving threat. “Let’s go to bed. You gotta rest, and I just wanna hold ya.”

“I will, baby, cross my heart; after I check on Tony and Bruce, real quick-like.”

He groaned while helping me out of the shower and grabbing a towel. “And nobody’s gonna persuade you otherwise, are they? I swear sometimes it’s like havin’ little Stevie back, except not,” he joked with wiggly eyebrows. 

“Thanks a lot,” I retorted with another kiss. “I need to get a basic update on where things stand, so I know what to tell the press. That’s got to be done, and soon, and if I lie down first, I may not get back up for a while.”

Once we got clean clothes on, I went to check on the office space I had used before, happy to see it was still available. Then we walked (slower than I wanted to, but the flesh was bruised and sore even though the spirit was impatient) back toward the medical wing. I asked directions to the bay where Bruce was being bandaged up—it was another indicator of the Stones’ power that even changing from his Hulk-form hadn’t automatically healed his injuries. He was alone, talking field medicine with the staff. “Nat’s with Steve at a meetup of the leaders of all the groups of reinforcements that landed on us,” he said. “She ordered me to wait here, and, who argues with the Black Widow, right?”

We agreed, hugged, and moved on with word that Tony was in the same room he had used before. On a settee in the hallway outside it, I spied Wanda again, this time sitting in conversation with Strange. “The princess had to fabricate some more of those special bandages, so she and her ‘aides’ came back to finish working on Tony,” she told us while she and her mentor did a little fabricating, of a magical sort; they ended up sitting in what seemed like mid-air, and Bucky supported my injured side as we sat down on the loveseat.

As soon as my butt hit the rattan, Wanda started to ask me questions about what had happened on the battlefield. She was excited and eager to hear even the most outlandish fancies I had entertained during those seconds that had felt like hours, and hoping we might retry our experiments with telepathy to see if my encounter with the Stones might have opened something up (my reaction was basically _witch please_. There was no rush; we had plenty of time, now, to explore that.) Bucky tried to slow her down, but honestly, I was just as keen to tell it, especially to somebody who might be able to make sense of it all, and to give Wanda her props for keeping her head. As far as I was concerned, she was a bigger hero of the day than I could ever have been.

Bucky listened quietly, his attention all on me. I wondered what if anything he had felt during the loop, and whether, if I asked in private later, he might tell me. Strange was silent too, but it was plain he was absorbing every detail, and his face looked troubled, though he was just as plainly trying to hide it. Good; I wanted to make damn sure he knew what his attempt to pull away from the loop could have cost us all.

When Shuri and her entourage emerged, I hopped up, or rather, tried to, then winced and cussed under my breath. She just grinned knowingly. “He will not be speaking with you just now. Miss Potts prevailed upon him to let us start administering medication for the pain, to help him to rest and begin to heal.”

“How is he, really?” Wanda asked.

“He will survive, and thrive, our physicians believe. We hope we can save his arm, but it is too soon to tell.” 

That hit hard; Tony wasn’t going to be happy with any limits on his life. I floundered for a beat, until beside me, Bucky snorted. “Guess my expertise may be needed twice over, then, till you get him a new soupbone fitted.” The frowns that turned toward him were identical on every face including mine. “Arm,” he sighed and lifted his own prosthetic. “Soupbone’s old Brooklyn Dodgers slang, means a baseball pitcher’s throwin’ arm.”

I chuckled at his mild frustration and patted his metal forearm. “I just want to check on Tony,” I told Shuri. “Promise we won’t bother him.”

A wave of déjà vu caught me as I stepped through the door. Pepper was at Tony’s bedside, as she had been after the _Benatar_ ’s landfall, and he was sleeping, as he had been then. The next moment, all the changes rushed in. The nanite housing that held Rescue glowed faintly beneath Pep’s blouse, and Tony’s right arm was swathed in Shuri’s special bandages, as well as the right side of his head. Most notably, Peter stood by the bed, shifting from foot to foot and still looking like he might vibrate right out of his skin. “He’s resting,” Pep said, her gaze not moving from Tony. “He wasn’t thrilled about being knocked out. He said he’d had worse pain.” I thought about the years he’d spent with a machine embedded in his chest, and would have bet my last dime he had never shared with anybody the real extent of what he had endured with that. “I’m just glad, though,” she went on, her face streaked by sweat or tears or both, but bearing a smile that wouldn’t quit, “that nightmare he’s been living with ever since the day the Chitauri came down on New York…it’s over now. He can really, finally, rest.”

I nodded, put my free arm around her shoulder and looked him over. As I had thought, his features were mostly spared; the arm and the side of his head seemed most burned. “Thank the Lord for that,” I agreed. Then, to try and cheer her, I added, “But you know he’s gonna be so pissed when he sees how messed up his hair is.”

She managed a laugh at that, then something close to a glare at Peter. “Stop putting it off, young man. Go call your aunt.” 

Peter gulped and started to pat his pockets as if looking for his phone. Bucky chuckled. “C’mon kid, I’ll show you where you can get a line out.”

As they left, I spied Laura and Clint sitting on the other side of the bed; they said they had been here when Shuri and her team came in, and stayed with Pep. “When my call to Clint dropped,” Laura explained, “I called Pepper, knowing their house was close enough to see what was up at the compound.”

“I saw the shooting start and ran for my suit,” Pepper added. “Laura was frantic, and I got an idea and called Wong. He had already heard from Stephen, and they were portaling their order in, so I asked if they had a second to bring one more experienced fighter. Stephen remembered how to access the farm, and he even asked if I needed a lift, but I reminded him I could find my way.”

“I put Cooper in charge of Lila and Nathaniel, grabbed my old knives, and dove through that hole the instant it opened,” Laura finished, with an emphatic squeeze of Clint’s hand.

Just then, Wanda and Strange poked their heads in. While Laura criticized Clint’s taste in haircuts, Pepper hugged Wanda with profuse thanks, then thanked Strange for his help. He took one look at the bed and Tony’s still, quiet form, and beat a suspiciously hasty retreat. I deferred speculation about him, for now. “If we had a couple more,” I joked, “we could have a rooftop squad reunion.”

“I feel honored to be included in the hen party,” Clint kidded, but with a calmness in his face I hadn’t seen since he invited himself to the battle here in Wakanda.

After a while, Clint and Laura left—he wanted to show her how amazing the Golden City was—and Wanda stepped out too, to finish her debriefing with Strange and then find her brother. I offered to stay with Tony so Pep could take a breather, go grab a bite or borrow my shower. She insisted she was okay for now, but I pledged to send somebody to check in (not that I really figured I’d need to; people were going to find their way there, I suspected, just as they had the last time Tony was laid up here). 

Pepper sent me off with a big hug. “Thank you, Chrissy,” she whispered fiercely.

“For what?” I said. “You do know I’m not the one who saved the world.”

“I do,” she affirmed, then turned her head to give a significant look where Tony still slept. “But you helped to save mine.”

Well. That wasn’t the sort of thing one could give a smart-ass reply to, so I just hugged her tightly again and slipped out. Strange sat alone on the settee; Wanda and Pietro had accompanied Clint and Laura on their tour, he said, and Bucky had asked him to tell me to wait for him here. “I’m not one for being relegated to courier status, but considering the circumstances, it seemed boorish of me not to pass Sergeant Barnes’ message along.” He stood, the Cloak swirling around his feet. “My duty is done, so I’ll be on my way—”

“Wait.” I put my good hand out to touch the Cloak, and it butted against my palm in its catlike way. “I need to know. Was this the one way you saw, the one path to win?”

His answer shocked me to my toes. “No,” he said bluntly. “Rather, in a manner of speaking, no. The one path I saw was Stark wielding the gauntlet to destroy Thanos, yes—but I didn’t see you by his side. That’s what you really want to know, isn’t it—why I tried to pull out of Maximoff’s mind-loop. It was because I was confused. I saw him, there, with the power of the Stones eating him alive, and I didn’t know whether your being there might change things enough to ruin our one chance.”

“So you, what, would’ve blasted me away, so he could die alone?” I wasn’t going to char-broil him, not here, not now, I was _not_ , as much as a part of me wanted to in that moment.

“I—dammit, I don’t know. It was only a shaven second before Quill transcended his clownish nature and put the final piece into place that saved us and Stark, so there wasn’t time for me to act anyway."

I thought about it for a moment, while the Cloak wriggled against my fingers as if trying to reassure me. “You stopped looking, when you got to a scenario where we won.”

“Yes, there wasn’t time to go farther, and it took fourteen million six hundred and five tries to find just one.”

“You should have stayed through the closing credits. I guess I appeared in episode fourteen million six hundred and six.” 

His mouth actually quirked in something close to a laugh. “Even masters of the mystic arts cannot see all ends,” he admitted. 

“I guess not. Your predecessor told me, the Stones do as they will, not as we think we see them doing.” That got his attention, so I ended up sitting beside him and giving him a brief summation of my part in the time heist. My account of meeting the Ancient One made his smile soften and his eyes look sad; even the Cloak drooped a bit, and lay on my lap. 

“During the battle I told Stark, if I told him what was to be, it would not come to be,” Strange said, his gaze tracing the lines of a piece of art hanging on the wall opposite. “Obviously, that was when I thought he would face Thanos and defeat him at the cost of his own life. Even if I had seen you as a part of this future, I wouldn’t have told him, knowing his fondness for you. He might have refused, or tried to steer you away, and altered the flow irretrievably.”

I shook my head. “That’s where you’re wrong. Tony’s one person in my life who has never tried to take my autonomy or failed to respect my choices.”

The smile reappeared. “I must admit, I didn’t know he had this capability for such.”

“Hate to say I told you so,” I snarked, “but if you will recall, I did.”

“True,” he agreed. “I was not looking forward to bearing the weight of knowing I had sent him to his doom. Now, while we wait for your prodigal cyborg to return, tell me more about this ‘time heist’.”

I shared all I knew, and Strange came to the same conclusion that I had from my talk with the Stones: the Time Stone he bore, and by extension he himself, had made the same mistaken assumption that the Soul Stone had made. From Steve and Tony’s report from Vormir, we had all gathered that Soul had meant Peter when they spoke of a sacrifice made by Tony that was outside the usual sequence of events. “Like Time, Soul must have foreseen Stark wielding them,” Strange mused, “and come to the same conclusion I did—no human can do so and live, and he is doing so, therefore he will not live. But none of us doing the foreseeing took into account the love of his friends, that simply refused to allow him to be taken from them.”

“We thought by ‘out of sequence’ Soul meant the sacrifice had happened before the guys ever requested the Stones’ aid,” I reflected. “Instead, apparently they meant they would give their help, because they had foreseen the incident would end with a sacrifice, Tony dying.” I shuddered, and the Cloak stirred on my lap and patted my thigh.

Strange nodded thoughtfully. “Kind of nice to know even the Stones are not infallible.” 

“And that assuming still makes an ass out of you and me, even if the ones doing the assuming are nearly infinite,” I added as I saw Bucky come around a corner with a purposeful (and sexy) stride to reclaim me.


	35. Chapter 35

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of Thanos' defeat, things start to go in the rough direction of normal. Defenders go their way, new friendships form, and healing begins, as Chrissy gets back to her day job and puts forth her cover story.

It was time for me to keep my promise to Bucky, so we both tumbled into bed still clothed, for a good nap. When my stomach woke me up growling, the skies over Birmin Zana were fully dark. I considered leaving a note and slipping out, but that didn’t fly; the instant I moved toward the edge of the bed, Bucky was wide awake, his sleep as light and watchful as ever. My tummy would not be denied, though, so we headed for our usual dining hall in the royal complex. 

There, we found a small celebration in progress. Rhodey, Carol and Sam sat at a table, with Scott and the dark-haired woman I had guessed was Hope at a smaller one beside them. The Guardians had scooted several more together and were busily driving the kitchen staff to distraction—well, not really; Wakandans can handle most anything, especially when the half of their populace who were semi-magically whisked away return just as suddenly. “Our hero!” Scott yelped when he saw me and nearly knocked his table over scrambling up to tackle-hug me.

“Not even close,” I laughed, “but I’ll take the compliment. I’m taken!” I called over to the skeptical-looking girlfriend. “Please don’t kill me. And you,” I added and poked a glowering Bucky in the ribs, “aren’t allowed to kill anybody either.”

Introductions were made all around and I was finally able to match faces to names—and minds, in a couple of cases. “You are a hero, though!” Mantis maintained. “I felt your love for the Stone-bearer, and your refusal to yield that placed you to be the conduit for our minds.”

“That doesn’t make me a hero,” I argued. “Wanda pulled all your minds together, she’s a hero. And you all came, not knowing what would happen, you’re heroes. And you!” I pointed to Quill, who looked startled. “You came up with the plan on the fly that saved Tony, and everybody. That’s hero material, in my book.”

“Don’t argue with her,” Bucky grunted to Quill. “S’like arguin’ with a brick wall.”

I poked him one more time, then turned my attention to stuffing my face and getting acquainted with our new friends. Hope, it turned out, was the daughter of Scott’s mentor Dr. Pym. “Dad’ll disown me again if he ever finds out I had a hand in saving a Stark,” she said over her cup of tea, her tone only half-joking.

“Nah,” Scott said before I got my mouthful of eggs down to reply. “Not if he met Tony. You meet him, you’ll see, babe.”

Rhodey reported that Wong had portaled him with the Stones to the Tower, where Tony had left their backup containment unit. “Guess who was there. FRIDAY! She just came back online all of a sudden. I don’t know if Tony ever even had time to try to reboot her. Guess I can ask him when he’s back up to snuff, but her fallback coding must’ve kicked in and pulled her back to her original server when the compound got hit.” I had a feeling there was more to it than that. JARVIS had been part of the circle of souls that shielded Tony from the power of the unleashed Stones. I suspected FRIDAY had been one of the other entities with him, but that before that, she had been among the snapped. We had time, though, now, to ask those questions and seek the answers, but I secretly reveled in the idea that Tony had actually created life.

Somewhere along the way Sam had learned about Rhodey being offered the vice-president’s office, and he and Bucky started to razz him thoroughly. Carol and I just observed and enjoyed the fracas. “I like your haircut!” I told her, with a nod toward her now short and spiky blonde hair.

She ruffled it with her fingers. “Thanks. An old guy from Sakaar did it. He got a little carried away, I just wanted a trim, but after I got over the initial shock I kinda like it. Jim’s still undecided. Our girlfriend likes it though.”

I did a mental doggie-head-tilt. Sam was still giving Rhodey grief, but Bucky had turned back toward our conversation. “I thought you and Rhodey—Jim—were still dating,” he said.

“We are,” she frowned.

“And…?” I added, feeling suddenly protective and irritated. “Girlfriend?”

A hint of an evil grin replaced the frown. “Yeah?” she challenged.

The dry salt of protectiveness was washed over by a wave of comprehension: _our girlfriend_. “Ohhh,” I breathed, and matched her wicked little smile. “It’s like that. Okay then. You go girl.”

Bucky was silent, but just about the time I thought I was going to have to explain, he said slowly, “What is that thing from the internet that Pete and Ned showed me? ‘Mark me down as scared _and_ horny’.”

Carol choked on her coffee, then howled. Bucky just sat there blinking his blue eyes all innocent. “I ought to spank you for that,” I hissed at him, pretending to be furious. 

“Promise?” he smirked.

Rhodey looked across the table with a crease of concern between his brows, but before he could start a group interrogation he was interrupted by his pocket buzzing. “Coulson!” he answered his phone, his face brightening. “Everybody intact?…uh-huh, good. No, I was, um, moving some classified experimental materials out of the compound, or what’s left of it, for Tony. He—got banged up pretty bad, so he asked me to—Right…Chrissy? Uh, yeah, she’s here…here is Wakanda, and no, don’t ask how. She’s not here-here, she, um, got hurt too, so she’s off getting patched up. Want me to give her a message?” There was a long pause. “Roger that. Will pass along…You too, buddy. Out.” Call ended, he turned to my expectant gaze. “Coulson and Hill are fending off media at the battlespace. He says Fury’s been grumbling about shooting down press helos, which, probably he wouldn’t, but still, Coulson’s thinking a statement from the Avengers’ press rep would be appropriate right about now.”

“Omigod,” I gulped. “They can’t do that…can they? Shit. I wouldn’t put it past Fury to try.”

Her airway finally clear, Carol reached for Rhodey’s phone. “I’ll talk Nick down.”

“Thanks, but I still need to get in front of a video feed, in a hurry.” It was near midnight in the Golden City, so mid-afternoon in New York. “Bucky? Come help me, hon, please?” I waved my bandaged arm. 

His face betrayed his unhappiness, but he didn’t waste time arguing. Instead, he stayed by me while I blasted my entire press corps mailing list with a notification of a virtual briefing in one hour, slapped a VICTORY banner on all Avengers social media, and (secretly) deleted the recordings and messages I had created in the event of my untimely demise. “Now’s when I really need you,” I told him, and we worked together to get me camera-ready. I yielded on a business suit, opting instead for a nice blouse and slacks, while we constructed a cover story for me. Bucky did most of that, really, which was nice, considering how much I dislike lying even when it’s necessary. He put makeup over the scorch marks on my cheek and neck (Extremis would have healed normal burns by now, but again, these weren’t normal), then located a scarf and helped me tie it on as a sling. 

One hour later, I started the presser. “You may remember that after the Snap, the Avengers received intel through sources on other worlds that Thanos had disposed of the Infinity Stones, before he died of the injuries he suffered. That’s the theory they were going with, until a few weeks ago, when they received a tip that the Stones had been hidden, not destroyed. They located them, worked out a means of using them, and Dr. Banner, aka the Hulk, reversed the action that took half the universe’s sentient life.” As I spoke, I noted other feeds in the corner of my screen, showing celebrations and gleeful chaos all over earth. “Unfortunately, the reports of the demise of Thanos of Titan were also ill-informed. He got wind the Stones had been found, tracked them here, and attacked the Avengers’ compound. All possible reinforcements were called in to hold him off until the Stones could be moved. He got them back, briefly, and declared his intent to destroy the entire population of the universe this time.” The faces of the reporters online showed their unanimous horror. “The only Avenger close enough at that moment was Iron Man. He jumped Thanos, and used a fail-safe mechanism to take the Stones back. A single human…can’t hold all the Stones and live.” I suppressed a shudder, and saw fear cross the faces onscreen; they knew Tony and I were close, after all. “However, the Avengers, with their powers united, are far more than that. Tony took the lead, and he—he was badly injured. But he’s alive, and Thanos and his army are no more, and everybody is safe, and that’s all that matters.”

When one reporter asked about my appearance, I tried to look abashed. “I missed the whole thing,” I admitted, “not that I could have done much other than maybe talk Thanos to death. I was in my office at the compound, and was trapped in the rubble. Broke my arm, burned my hand, and dug my way out just after the action ended, so what I’ve told you was based on the information I gathered from those who were there.” That gave me an escape hatch, by telling them if and when I got more info they needed to know, I would share it in a later briefing. I ended by repeating that nothing of any interest was to be seen at the site where the training compound had stood, that the injured Avengers were receiving treatment at our proverbial undisclosed location, and that the Infinity Stones were under the best possible security.

It was a firm indication that people should stay away from the compound, but just in case they didn’t get the message, Carol told me later that Phil had detailed some SHIELD agents to hang around the place in the guise of cleaning crews. Steve was not thrilled about that, and sent a volunteer team to ‘help’ (really, to make sure the agents didn’t get hold of things they shouldn’t, on the off chance anything of that nature had survived). He approved of my presentation to the press and public, though, so I felt I’d done my duty. 

Over the ensuing days, things began to move. With the help of Strange’s Order, the groups who had come to the Avengers’ aid began to disperse. Hamid admitted that with the Mandarin back, the Ten Rings might resume hostilities; but to a man, he said, the crew who looked to him had renounced violence against their fellow humans, and went home determined to make their comrades understand. 

Peter had been dispatched home before anybody else, but somehow had managed to bond with Stephen, and kept just—reappearing. He had developed a swift and major crush on Brunhilde, and was almost as crazy about her Pegasus, Aragorn. (We all had to find out where in sam hill that gorgeous beast came from. She said Valkyries could summon them, that she had lost that ability when she rejected her position as the last of her kind, but that when sorcerers had opened portals and mustered New Asgard to battle, she had called, and her mount had returned. “Wow,” Peter breathed, wide-eyed. “That might actually make MJ cry. I gotta tell her.”)

Everybody swapped backstories, everybody who wanted to at least, and shared accounts of their experiences. Some conversations were light, like Carol and Quill comparing musical tastes. The time heist reports we hadn’t had time to hear got told. Some exchanges delved deeper. The snapped universally reported nothing they could recall, which wasn’t a surprise, really. It was a little disappointing, but then not, at the same time, if that makes any sense.

Bruce told us he had asked the Stones about Vision, as he and Tony had planned; and as our geniuses had suspected, the request had been rejected. “They didn’t talk to me—that’s your department, Chris,” he said, “but they…showed me, I guess. We can’t keep this Mind Stone, and even if we could, and built a new android body around it, it still wouldn’t be Vision, not really.”

Wanda grieved, but with her brother back and her friends to support her, we hoped she would be all right. “I’m sorry for every time I griped about having to stay at the compound for safety’s sake,” she sighed. “If I’d thought this far, I would have seized every moment with him.”

We all talked, too, about the mind-loop. It really did last only two or three seconds max, in the physical world. People spoke of feeling a sense of expansion, or uplift, or something they could not describe in words. A few said they had been able to identify individual people, usually those they were closest to emotionally or had been drawn in with, or by. Steve had recognized Bucky’s presence, for instance, and Rocket the other Guardians. Everyone had sensed Wanda, naturally, but they said the same about me, which made me blush. Above all, what every person had been drawn to was the center of the loop: Tony, and his intent to end the threat to all life, whatever the cost, whatever it took. His dogged resolve had become their battle cry.

The full picture of the epic event wouldn’t emerge until Tony could tell his side, or as much as he wanted to tell. Knowing him, that was likely to be self-edited a fair bit, but he was entitled. It didn’t happen right away, as Shuri and Helen (once Bruce and Wong got her to Birmin Zana) kept him sedated for a couple of days to run every test imaginable and some unimaginable. Helen wasn’t sure her Cradle tech would work on the Stones’ damage, and she couldn’t tell from looking at Bruce or me since we both had inherent factors to speed our healing. Tony’s vitals were stable, though, so with plans in place to manage any pain that the special bandaging didn’t, they brought him out. 

Naturally, being Tony, his first reaction was to be mad he had missed out on the fun and the aliens and all. “The duck guy,” he grumbled. “I wanted to meet the duck guy.”

“You didn’t miss much,” Rocket informed him. “Good shot, foul mouth, kind of an asshole. And I know you _and_ Quill, so for me to call him an asshole, that’s sayin’ something.”

The Avengers, and those closest to them—basically, everybody who had ended up in our mind-loop—had either stayed in Wakanda or stayed in touch with orders to contact them as soon as Tony was conscious and out of the woods. Consequently, the reunion in his hospital room this time beat even the one after his return to earth. Tony kept trying to deflect gratitude toward Wanda, or me, but neither of us were having it. He earned it and to a one, we were all determined to make sure he knew it. 

For somebody so used to being a center of attention, he fidgeted and all but crawled under the bedcovers as his friends, old and new, surrounded him with love. “I, um, could feel you all, around me. Sort of a cross between the Swiss Guard, and crowd surfing. I appreciate it,” he admitted finally, once he was sure nobody had been hurt. 

Clint scoffed. “The universe wouldn’t be any fun without you in it, shellhead. Course we couldn’t let you bail on us.”

We took turns catching Tony up and introducing him. Hours later, after most of the crowd had left and only the core of the team remained, he did the same. The most amazing account he shared, to my ears at any rate, expanded on Steve’s story about their side trip during the time heist, to 1970 to snag the Tesseract they had lost in 2012. “I met my dad,” Tony said, “just before I was born, and he was—excited. Scared, but excited. It was good, closure, I guess you could say.” It was heartening to hear, and Tony seemed to have taken it as an impetus to throw himself into the treatment and therapy regimen that Helen and Shuri, aided by Bruce and the science babies, had planned.

They were treating Bruce too, of course, and me. We both were healing, though slowly. It was no big deal; I could do my job from here for a while, as I had before. Bucky was with me most of the time, except when I shooed him away to get myself some peace and quiet. “Go check on Steve!” I told him.

“Stevie is a big boy. He can take care of his own damn self,” he retorted. “I mean, you can too, I know that, but you’re prettier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, Carol's hairdresser is who you think he is; and yeah, if she can handle Rhodey AND Maria (which I did not know until she informed me of that fact while I was writing that scene, hehe), she is every bit tough enough to handle Stan and his psycho clippers. lolol


	36. Chapter 36

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony gets news about his recovery, and makes a decision about Iron Man's future. Chrissy makes an unsettling discovery, but Bucky is by her side to help her handle it. The Avengers prepare to leave Wakanda and get back to the wider world as it restarts life.

After a few days of rest and finally feeling at peace, I decided to show Bucky what I had learned to do while he was gone. It was a great sentiment; the only problem was, it didn’t work. I couldn’t draw up any fire at all. I was afraid to push too hard, for fear of re-injuring myself, but I was mad as a wet hen. “That was one reason I couldn’t give up!” I bitched to him, “so I could show you, I had mastered Extremis, it hadn’t mastered me. I didn’t need a crutch anymore, like you said before you…you...”

“Shh,” he soothed me. “Hey! You showed me all you had to, when I saw you down in the dirt holdin’ Tony up with your arm half toasted by those damn stones. You don’t have to prove a single thing to me, ever.”

It worried me, though, so I did some discreet tests of my own. Allowing for my injuries, it appeared that the boost in my strength, stamina and speed remained. At my next scheduled visit with Shuri, I mentioned the issue, and demonstrated, or rather, didn’t demonstrate. As expected, she immediately wanted to reassess my status, as she had after Thanos’ snap. “I don’t see any significant difference,” she concluded, “at least not in the passive expression of Extremis. Encountering the Infinity Stones may just have so overwhelmed it that the active powers have gone dormant for a while. We will watch and see. One day you may find the fire at your fingertips again.”

Secretly, I remembered what I had said to the Stones, how I had offered up my unasked-for strength to save Tony, and I wondered if they had taken me up on my offer. My feelings about the possibility were conflicted, to say the least, and the Stones were stowed away in the Tower, so I couldn’t very well ask them at the moment. Maybe I could ask, if I cared to know the answer, before they were returned to their timelines.

As for that, Bruce, Scott and Rocket, with Clint backing them up, were working on the theoretical math needed to reconstruct the quantum rig, They figured they could take their plans back home and have supplies sent up to the compound property, build it there, and send someone to return all six Stones to their designated time and place, as we had promised them. Tony put in as much time helping them as he could, though he needed plenty of rest between treatments. In between doing my job, loving on Bucky, and pitching in wherever an extra brain or mouth was handy (like letting Thor and his ad hoc royal council bounce ideas off me for adapting New Asgard for the suddenly doubled population) I visited him every chance I got. 

Pepper and Rhodey spent the most time with Tony, naturally, but he seemed to clam up when I dropped by. I hoped he didn’t blame me for not doing more to protect him. Cautiously, I sounded Pep out about it, but she insisted he hadn’t sent any signals of the sort. “He's just tired, and hurting, and healing,” she pointed out, though she conceded that even after years of love and support (and therapy) he still kept things bottled up sometimes.

After a while, I decided I’d had enough, and between work duties, I moseyed over to the medical wing with my handsome shadow in tow. Tony was sitting up and talking a blue streak to Pepper when we tapped on the door frame to announce ourselves and she waved us in. “—and I know you’ve told me things you’d had to put up with as a woman in business, I knew it, intellectually, but I swear, Potts, that was the first time I truly half understood mansplaining.”

Thor was standing near the door, with Nebula beside him, and he chortled. “From my knowledge of Quill, that is a description more than apt.”

Tony looked better than he had since the battle; his eyes were bright, and only his arm was bandaged. The burned skin on his face was splotchy and red, but the splotches were starting to scab around the edges. His hair was completely gone on the right side, and Pepper brushed her lips against his temple there and grinned at me. “You were right, by the way, Chrissy. He’s furious about his hair.”

“Damn right,” Tony pouted. “Sending a strongly worded letter to those Jolly Ranchers’ manager. They may have the powers of infinity, but clearly hairdressing is not among those.”

“Just call it an undercut, like Clint’s, if anybody asks,” I teased. “Get the other side shaved down to match. Maybe Carol could get the guy who cuts her hair to come whip it into shape. What planet did she say he was from, Bucky?”

“Sakaar, I think,” Bucky replied. A fleeting look of horror crossed Thor’s face, but was gone the next moment. I figured he had some history on that world, and pointedly did not pursue it. “Hey, doll,” he went on as Nebula and Thor began to leave, “mind parking here for a few? I wanna go hang with Bluebell and her pals.”

“Of course! Scat!” I shooed him away. He had renewed his acquaintance with Rocket and made another nonhuman pal in Rocket’s crewmate Drax. That tickled me to no end, and he certainly deserved time to do something other than mother-hen me. Pepper asked after my arm, which was making slow progress, and then asked if I wanted to visit with Tony for a little while, while she made some business calls. The meaningful look she gave me made me think her absenting herself was calculated, which fit in with my own purpose.

I landed in the chair on Tony’s left, and we talked lightly for a few minutes. I asked if he had seen any coverage of the worldwide celebrations of the reversal and the defeat of Thanos; he hadn’t seen much, but admitted to being delighted that a Chinese city had already erected a, shall we say, imaginative statue of Bruce in Hulk form (in the nude) with the Stones’ gauntlet in hand. The world was starting to get back to normal, in both good ways and not so good, but the Avengers Initiative and those that we worked with were deploying to help.

“Hey, cornbread,” Tony said when the conversation lagged, “thanks for everything.”

I wanted to joke about how my public accounts of the team’s heroism didn’t deserve much thanks, considering what the good folks of Hangzhou had gleaned from it to make their statuary. He looked unusually serious, though, so I refrained and instead just said, “I didn’t do that much.”

“Kept me from becoming over-microwaved bacon.” He waved his wrapped arm a little in emphasis.

“I didn’t do that. Everybody who loves you did that. The stones saw how loved and needed you were, and because they obviously have some sense, which is more than I can say for some mortals,” I poked him gently in the ribs, “they agreed to help as much as their natures would allow. Wish I could say it was a grand plan I dreamed up, but it wasn’t. I just—I felt the Stones in your grasp and I had to be with you, in case…” I swallowed hard, the memory filling my head and tightening my heart. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more to keep you from getting hurt. I hope you don’t hate me—”

“Everhart,” he cut me off. “If it hadn’t been for you—and our wicked witchling and a few dozen heroes who were up for a psychic group hug, but definitely you—Pep would’ve had to scrape up what was left of me with a stick and a spoon. So, no blaming. Frankly, if we’re sharing things that reflect badly on us as persons…” He gave that telltale sniff that said he was uncomfortable, took my good hand in his and stared down at them, rubbing his thumb over my knuckles. “I was so focused on the task at hand, pun intended—” I snorted, hoping to lighten his mood, but his eyes were still dark and turned inward, and he wouldn’t look up at me. “--that not much else registered, but I… could feel you pressed against my back, and hear your voice in my ear, and all I could think, that second before Wanda started working her hoodoo, was how glad I was to not have to die alone, and that was so goddamn selfish—I didn’t mean it, I didn’t want you hurt—”

His voice broke, and I gasped a little. I’d been so intent on contesting the Stones, and then holding fast to my link with them while Wanda gathered our loved ones, in an act of grief that had become our triumph, that I hadn’t made any effort to reach for Tony’s mind for fear of distracting him. “Tony. Hey, hot rod, look at me.” After a long moment, he finally raised his face. His lip quivered almost imperceptibly, and he still wouldn’t meet my eye, as though in shame. “That right there--that was my intent. If all I could do was to be present with you, I was okay with it, whatever happened to me. I told the stones that, even. Don’t feel bad for wanting that, please don’t. You’re a big damn hero, but you’re only human.”

“Only human. Dammit,” he finished, mock-griping. “No, not really. I wouldn’t want to be anything else but 100% squishy--glacial healing times—at least compared to you and the Jolly Green Giant—aside.”

I smiled and let that go. This didn’t seem the time to mention that my contact with the Stones might have knocked my Extremis down a peg or two. I’d have to tell the team, eventually, so they wouldn’t be counting on Fireblade to back them up on future missions, and I wouldn’t have to go through the ordeal of signing onto the Accords. Knowing Tony, though, after blaming himself for me getting the power to begin with, he’d turn right around and kick himself for me losing them. So that could wait.

Days of rest and healing followed, under the warm Wakandan sun. My burns were pronounced cured first, with Bruce not that far behind. About then, Tony was feeling froggy enough to start getting out of bed, but had to have someone with him constantly because of sudden spells of vertigo. Shuri and Helen scanned him and determined the damage to his right inner ear had affected his balance as well as his hearing. As he persisted and got his feet under him, he grew more adept at compensating, but Helen’s best efforts with her Cradle did not restore either one completely, any more than they healed his arm completely. 

Being Tony, he was not about to yield; he started designing a brace for his arm that tapped into the residual nerve and muscle function of his chest, neck and shoulder, to maximize the movement he still had. Shuri whipped him up a detachable prosthetic ear identical to his remaining one, and once her ‘secret sauce’ (his term, naturally) healed his face and head enough, it popped right in place and stayed. Well, it stayed, except when he got pissed at something somebody was saying and took it off and threw it at them. We all got used to that pretty quickly, though the first time he did it to Carol she threatened to confiscate it as a toy for Goose. I hadn’t seen Rhodey (or Tony) laugh that hard in ages.

In the course of recovery, Tony gained another tutor. Clint took him under his wing and taught him all manner of hacks to manage in the hearing world, at the same time Bucky was teaching him to work with one functioning arm. The period from lying in a sedated semi-coma to ambling around one of the smaller markets of the Golden City with a Dora Milaje escort and trying his Wakandan out (to everyone’s amusement) flew by surprisingly fast. He was relentlessly optimistic, certain he’d get full function back, until the day Shuri and Helen sat him down and explained all their tech couldn’t restore his arm. 

I was afraid, that day, of what Tony’s reaction might be. Pepper even confessed she had spoken with Strange, asking if he could use the other verse’s Time Stone as he would have his own, to reverse the damage. “He was…gentler than I expected,” she admitted, “when he told me that what all six Stones had done, only all six could mend.” 

Bruce would have given it a shot, we both suspected, but when Pep brought it up to Tony he nearly threw his ear out the nearest window and flatly refused to let anybody risk themselves to fix him. “It’s healing,” he maintained. “I’ll see how it goes, and if it doesn’t go, it’ll have to go, you know? Thelma and Louise can build me a new one, and Olaf, it’ll put yours to shame.” Bucky promptly promised to arm-wrestle him to settle the score, when the situation allowed. “We’ll put it on pay-per-view,” Tony agreed, “proceeds to Resilience Center, maybe, or your little Brooklyn moles!” He turned to Pepper and added, “You finally have me on your hands full-time, Potts. No more superheroing. Hope I can still take the suit out though, once I figure I won’t fly into the side of the tower like a bug on a windshield. That’d be an even worse look than this,” he said with a careful touch to the scars on his cheek. 

Nat had gotten Shuri some of SHIELD’s photostatic veils, and she modified them so instead of a disguise, they projected the right side of Tony’s face, unscarred. “Bast knows, I had more than enough archival footage to work from,” she said tartly when she gifted them to him. “Either you love cameras, or they love you.”

“Or both,” he shot back. “Both is good.” Snark aside, he appreciated them, it was plain, and every step he took now was part of his drive to get home. He wanted to get back into his lab, finish tying up the last loose ends of the war, then get back to a normal life (for whatever loose definition of normal he had in mind), and let us do the same. 

My life during those weeks was spent running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I posted regular updates on the wounded Avengers’ progress and went through my contact list calling everybody I knew who had definitely or possibly been snapped. When I wasn’t reconstructing my old life, or an updated version, I was reconnecting with my Dora Milaje friends. I explained discreetly that my fire abilities seemed to be taking a recuperative nap, but ended up getting dragged into spars anyway; thank heavens I could still hold my own without a flaming sword.

Somehow, I also ended up playing Wakandan concierge, so to speak, connecting my outlander friends with whatever or whoever they needed. Sam had fought alongside W’Kabi and his tribe much of the final battle, and wanted to locate a particular fighter he had clicked with, so I handed him over to Okoye. Steve’s shield had been shattered, and Shuri intimidated him, so I went with him to her lab to lend moral support (and giggle with her about it after he left). May persuaded Happy to brave a portal for a visit, so I got to play tour guide, while she told how Ned had tackled Peter in tears when we sent him home, and how Peter and Harley had circled each other like two young tomcats sniffing each other out, until Harley asked about Tony, and they ended up bonding over the ‘old man’ they both loved. 

With all that going on, I wasn’t getting to spend nearly as much time with Bucky as I wanted to. He seemed okay, though, and busy himself, and given that he hadn’t brought it up, I figured he didn’t want to dwell on the ordeal we had endured. That lasted until we went out to check on the farm and the goats (somebody had gotten Natasha pregnant in our absence; my money was on Steve). Bucky sat me down on our bed and, as my uncles used to say, gave my head a good talking to. “Ya still doin’ it, doll. Stevie said you did it while I was gone. You’re runnin’ yourself so hard you don’t slow down enough to feel. Pep told me, when Wanda pulled her mind up against Tony’s, she could feel, clear as a church bell, how bad he wanted to keep her safe, how he'd do anythin’ t’make that happen, even bein’ scared as hell an’ sure he’d die of it. ‘M glad she said so, ‘cause I thought maybe I’d imagined it, but I felt the same, comin’ from your hard lil’ head there. That ain’t the sorta thing that heals with a burn, or that you can wave bye to, or run away from.”

“It’s over, though,” I countered.

“That mean I’m wrong?” he challenged.

It didn’t, of course, and he was right. We held each other, and our voices and bodies said the things our minds had pledged in that moment out of time. By the time morning came, finding us in that cozy little hut, we were on the same page, and made a promise to each other not to make asses of ourselves by assuming, to use our words, and to love ourselves as much as we loved each other. (There was also sex, thank heavens, which doesn’t fix everything by a long shot, but made everything a little better in and of itself. I stand by this statement.)

One decision we had to make individually, or at least I thought so at first, was where to go next. My day job needed me back; in these days while earth was still rejoicing, the Avengers were universally beloved, but people being people, and fickle by nature, that wasn’t going to last forever. The majority of the team was heading back to New York, to crash in the tower for a while and plan their next moves, and I needed to go with them. if Bucky wanted to stay in Wakanda a while longer, that was okay, though I’d miss him terribly. Bucky, as usual, had something to say about that. “Nope. Elder Tisi an’ the kids can take care of this place, if we want to come back an’ visit, but whither thou goest I’m goin’ too.”

I made no argument. A few days later, when Strange opened a portal and ushered Avengers and affiliates through and onto the common floor of Tony’s tower, Bucky and I stepped through holding hands and ready to face whatever came next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tony's rant about his first meeting with Quill was inspired by this tweet: https://twitter.com/RachelLeishman/status/974691565150068736


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Avengers return to New York and make decisions about their path forward, individually and as a team.

The Sorcerer Supreme deposited us at our destination with what purported to be an aggrieved sigh. “I’ve had enough of playing subway conductor to last my next four lifetimes,” he grunted. “Farewell, Avengers, and may we never have to spend this much time in this close proximity again. I need a nap. No, maybe a sandwich first. Hope the corner deli is running full force again, maybe I can prevail on them to whip me up something. Fresh mozzarella, some sun-dried tomatoes—yes, you annoying garment, back to the Sanctum first to see if Wong is up for a tuna melt—”

“Hey, Mandrake,” Tony said. Strange paused in drawing his portal home. “You did a pretty good job out there, for a part-time superhero. If you’re ever in need of a side hustle, we could probably use a sparkly hand on occasion.”

“We?” Strange cocked an eyebrow. “I thought you were retired, Stark.”

Tony held fast to Pepper’s waist with his good arm, with a hint of a half-lit sway from his balance issues; but the smile that quirked his still-handsome face was as fearless as ever. “I’m retired from active duty, but how do you retire your, y’know, feelings, your wanting to protect things and people you care about? You can’t stick that in a vault and forget about it. I can’t do what I used to do, but I’ll do what I can.”

As he spoke, I watched Pepper watch him, with a soft and knowing smile. To be honest, I had been a little skeptical about whether he would stick to his retirement, this time, even being physically limited by something that likely would never be at full power again. This, though, sounded firm, and I knew he meant it when he said he’d do what he could. I could see him tinkering till his last breath, revamping gear and concocting new gadgets, to give his friends in the field every possible edge.

Strange harumphed. “My plate is more than full as it is, but I…I will stay in touch. Just to protect you lot from yourselves, you understand.” 

“Right,” Pepper chuckled. “Thank you for everything, Stephen. Now run along and get your sandwich. Wong talks about that deli all the time.”

The Cloak waved at the group of silently amused Avengers as they and their still-grumbling compatriot took their leave. The elevator dinged while the last sparkle of closing portal was vanishing, and a thundering herd of teenage boys burst from it and swooped at a startled Tony. Pep stepped aside to facilitate the Peter-and-Ned sandwich that resulted. “Hey, wait, what th—yes, underoos, yes, I—come on, Nedry, it looks like I’m being hug-attacked, you might as well join in.” Peter fussed, as he tended to do, over Tony slinging his damaged arm around from the shoulder, and Ned babbled more words in a minute than I had ever even heard Tony on a caffeine-fueled inventing binge utter; but Tony glared around both of them at Harley, who had skidded to a halt with his mouth half-open. “What’re you doing here, Hazzard? Wait, no, that’s the sort of question people say doesn’t come out quite right. What I mean, is, your mom and sister, they’re—?”

“Yeah, they’re good, old man. Happy got me down home to check up on ‘em, and they wanna come see New York sometime, but I…after Miz Pep told me about—” he made a jerky half-point toward Tony’s right side—“I thought maybe you’d need an extra hand for a spell. So I told ‘em I have an amazin’ job here and I was gonna stay. Miz Pep said it was okay, not like I’m tryin’ to throw her up under the bus or nothin’—”

Tony let out a dramatic groan. “Come here, Davidson, and quit with the theatrics. I’m gonna need all of you science babies, plus Speedy, whenever he’s around.”

That comment sparked a lively group conversation alongside the decisions about where to order supper (Tony was all for swarming the deli Strange was going to, just for shits and grins, but Pepper vetoed it. We wound up calling Roberta’s Pizza down the block and getting at least one of everything on the menu.) Besides them, and Bucky and me, only Steve, Bruce and Nat had returned to New York, but between the self-declared ‘squad’ and May and Happy who followed them up a few minutes after, we had a full, noisy, happy floor. JARVIS chimed in on occasion, and Tony nearly broke down and cried in front of everybody when he heard FRIDAY’s voice.

Clint and Laura had had to head home pretty promptly to rescue their oldest son from babysitter duty, and invited Wanda and Pietro along. They hadn’t even needed a portal; as it turned out, Quill had been born in the Midwest, and wanted to hunt up his old hometown, so the Guardians had given them a lift. Nebula’s past self and her sister had gone on the _Benatar_ too, while deciding on their own course; if they wanted to return to their timeline, Tony and Bruce had pledged to get them there.

Intriguingly, Sam had chosen to stick around Wakanda for a few more days. He seemed to have bonded hard and fast with W’Kabi’s borderers (or maybe, as Ayo and Aneka had confided on my last outing with the Dora Milaje before I’d left, it was a particular border warrior he was taken with, and good for him, I said). Rhodey and Carol were in Louisiana with their girlfriend Maria, Scott and Hope were back on the West Coast, and the Asgardians had decamped for home. 

Everybody had pledged to be on call, especially in the first days and weeks, in case some opportunistic asshole tried to pull some shit on a world still half-dazed, and everybody had pledged to return for an occasion a decade or two in the making—Tony and Pepper’s wedding. That was a while off still, though, because Tony flatly refused to even consider it until he was as healed as he was going to get. He vowed he was going to stand on his own two feet and put the ring on her finger with his own hand, or whatever high-tech simalucrum he cooked up. Pepper didn’t argue; she seemed content just to have him here.

Over pizza, pasta, pastry and crispy squid (don’t ask who ordered that), the Avengers currently in residence discussed their future plans. Pepper had sent a crew upstate as soon as possible post-battle, to shoo Fury’s nosy SHIELD posers off and actually clear the site where the compound had stood. Whether they wanted to rebuild there was another question, and one they agreed as a unit they didn’t have to answer right now. “You’ve got a cot and three hots right here,” Tony declared wisely—I thought they all, we all, needed some time to reintegrate, to find how we fit back into the restored world. I voiced that, and got all-around buy-in to the idea of taking our time.

“I’ll rustle up a press briefing to let folks know you’re back,” I decided. “That way you can go out, do whatever you want to do. I’ll make it clear people need to give you space, so you can move at your own speed. We’ll have a team presser when you all are ready.”

The most pressing thing on the Avengers’ collective plates was getting the Infinity Stones back to their respective home timelines, but until the reconstructed quantum tunnel was ready, it was pretty much a holding pattern, with a few steps starting on the path back to normal, all around. Steve continued on his Operation Shock Sam plan, helping out at Resilience Center, and even though it had at first just been some way for him to feel needed, he had started to enjoy it; he liked listening to those in need, and giving them ideas and tools to build whatever they needed. When Sam finally did turn up, with Steve’s repaired shield in tow, he was beside himself with delight. “Should you be considering a career change, Cap, I’ll hook you up with my old teachers. You can start working on your counseling degree.”

Steve gave it some thought, and I lent him an ear. “I talked to Dr. Rausch about this,” he said. “She says she thinks sometimes helping others is the best way to help yourself. I just don’t know if I’m up for all that sitting in a classroom, though. I can still help at the Center with less training under my belt. And there’s so much more out there to do.” Once again, I reassured him there was no hurry. We had time, now; all of us did. 

Once our science brigade had their rig conceived for a small-scale reverse time heist, they planned a weekend jaunt up to the bare earth that had been the Avengers’ second home, for safety’s sake, to set up there. I intended to stay in the city and do my job, but they would have none of that. “Get real,” Bruce scoffed. “You negotiated with the damn things, you ought to be there when we say bye-bye to them for good.” 

I tried to explain that I had no more connection to them; even my sense of the Mind Stone’s presence was dulled to a faint scratching whenever I was in the same room as the containment unit. In the end, though, I went anyway. Bucky was going, to keep an eye on things he said. Steve was things, of course. He was taking the stones back, and Bucky just didn’t trust his buddy not to do something crazy on a moment’s notice. (Tony had offered to, but got understandably shouted down by the entire team.) One last time, I tried to reach out to the Stones to say goodbye, but got nothing, which frankly was fine by me. 

The sisters from 2014, dropped off by the Guardians on their way to visit New Asgard, had decided to return to their own timeline, in hopes that with Thanos and his army gone, they could work to mend what he had damaged. “And I will not look for that—that dancing idiot!” Gamora insisted. Our Nebula hid a small smile, and waved goodbye.

Then it was Steve’s turn. Thirty seconds after he vanished from the rebuilt launching platform, he came back grinning like the cat that got in the cream. “You look entirely too smug,” Tony accused. “Dare I ask what kind of trouble you got into?”

“Nothing I couldn’t get myself out of,” Steve returned. “Gave Red Skull your regards, then punched him into the next star system. Not literally; he was pissed as hell, he never expected us to bring the Soul Stone back, and he was going to be freed. As you say, Chris, sucks to be him.” 

Tony rolled his eyes. “When did I become the voice of reason in this crazy crew?” he asked the heavens, and waved his good hand.

Bucky was eyeing Steve. “That’s not all, punk,” he said. “Is it?”

Steve’s ears turned pink. “I, um, may have paused for a dance.”

Everybody frowned—except Bucky, who nearly swallowed his tongue. “Fuck, Stevie. Did you—Peg?”

Steve gave an embarrassed little shrug. “Long story. Suffice it to say, I didn’t negatively affect anything, and all the Stones are back where they came from.” Bruce blinked. Tony actually got both hands up to hide his face, and a baffled Peter patted his shoulder awkwardly in consolation.

With that done, I asked the team, by ones and twos, if they had an idea when they would feel up to talking in public. The answer was unanimous: _when Tony feels ready_. To no one’s surprise ever, he vanished into his workshop for extended periods in the days after Steve’s escapade. Peter and/or Harley were with him much of the time, being his extra hands. Bucky pitched in too, when he wasn’t in Brooklyn helping his garden kids (and their younger siblings, now) reclaim their space lost to weeds and trash during the period people were coming to call the Absence. He admitted he had missed his bot pals, while in Wakanda, nearly as much as his human ones, though he said the goats came close, at times, to filling that void. 

I worried a little about Tony in those days—he refused to leave the private floors of the tower, even wearing Shuri’s veil. Only Pepper’s reassurances, and knowing that he was talking with Dr. Rausch, kept me from really stressing out. He had let me make my own decisions, and as much as I loved the guy, I had to give him the same courtesy. I can’t deny, though, the excitement I felt the day he called me to his workshop to debut the arm brace he had built from the plans he’d drawn in his bed in Wakanda. It was a variation on the watch gauntlet, married to his nanotech and designed to take cues from the surrounding tissue. “If the arm doesn’t heal enough for me to use it the way I want, and it, uh, has to go, I have plans already in play for a new one. Princess Rainbow promised to help and I’m holding her tiny genius self to it. if I stick with the Iron Man aesthetic like this, then I can switch it for a full-on prosthetic and nobody’ll know the difference. Like I give a shit, I know where my arm has been, the _Daily News_ doesn’t need to…” He trailed off grumbling and shuffling through holo-diagrams, flexing the supported fingers and making noises of approval or discontent by turns. 

“So,” I smiled, “this mean you’re about ready to come out of your cave?”

“Yeah,” he replied, grabbing a tiny tool and tweaking something around his wrist. “Not for the Avengers, though, not first. I want SI first. They’ve been on Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride with me all these years, so I feel like they deserve first crack at me, you know? Also, I’ve got to do something with this hair!” He spun and jabbed a metal-clad finger at the right side of his skull. Thankfully, the hair was growing back, but a pure blinding white. “Pep even went out and got five kinds of hair dye and we spent a whole evening on it. Nothing’ll stick! I’ll have to invent my own. I refuse to have Strange give me that supercilious little smirk and ask if I’m imitating him. Fuck no. I’d go Fury first and shave it all off.”

I left him to bitch and went to offer Letitia my help setting up a company-wide get-together. She already had things well in hand, so I just turned up on the day in question to observe and enjoy. Bucky came with me; we stood in the back of SI’s main auditorium, listened to the excited buzz of the New York staff, and watched Peter and Harley bustle around checking the holoconferencing setup that would beam Tony into the other major SI offices, in California and around the world. While we waited, I told Bucky about the Spider-Man presser that wasn’t, and the engagement party it became, and how I wished that day that he was here. “’Cause you were thinkin’ you might worm a proposal outta me?” he teased.

“No! I mean, not no like _no_ , but no like, not worming something out of you, not making you feel pressed to do something you might or might not want, based on the feelings of the moment, or—”

He started to laugh out loud. Damn, I loved that sound. I hadn’t heard it nearly enough. “Doll, hold your horses. I’m foolin’ with you. Though ya never know, I might sneak somethin’ in on ya someday.”

I punched his shoulder (not the metal one. I’m not that dumb) and still laughing, he pulled me into his arms and we watched Tony walk out, veil in place, to a roar of welcome from the employees who loved him. It went well, and afterwards, he allowed that he might be ready to take on the media.

The Avengers’ press conference was the hottest ticket in town, and the room was packed. The original team and the newer members gathered just outside, as usual. I counted noses and came up one short. “Where’s Tony?” I asked, and got shrugs and a couple of concerned looks. Just when I was starting to wonder if he had changed his mind, he came around the corner arm in arm with Pepper. As he neared, I noticed something missing. “Um, Tony, the veil?”

He shook his head. “The scars aren't so bad, and the veil makes this high-pitched whine, I feel like mosquitoes are using my scalp for a convention center. I should’ve left it off for SI but I…wasn’t sure. I am now.” With an exchange of smiles with Pepper, he added, “Pep won’t let me do anything about the hair, anyway. She thinks it’s hot. So I guess I can deal with it, as long as it’s getting me lai—”

“Too much intel, Stark!” Clint yelped and reached for his hearing aids as if to turn them off. 

Laughing, Steve gave Tony a little shove toward the door. Tony resisted. “Uh-uh, I saved everybody’s asses last, I get to go in last. It’s like a Broadway curtain call, the leading man takes the stage at the end.” 

I watched them goof around and mock-insult, and took a moment to be supremely thankful for them, my friends one and all, before I stepped out to start the proceedings. Bruce got his props and a hearty round of hurrahs, and looked like he wanted to crawl under the nearest table. As he had threatened, Tony did emerge last, to a muffled gasp and then an eruption of cheers, the loudest and rowdiest I’d ever heard the jaded New York press. “I have tech to cover this up,” he said, with a gesture toward his face, “but I felt like, you deserve to see it, and I’m not sure I want to hide it. I’m not ashamed of it. In fact, it…reminds me of how close we got to losing everything, and how I never, ever, want to get that close again. Which is why I’m announcing my official retirement from the Avengers Initiative, for real this time.”

After a few more words (including a surprise mention that his work on his brace had led him to start a new line for SI of super-advanced prosthetics, in cooperation with the Wakandan Science Institute, and with Bucky on board as lead consultant), he stepped aside and into a group hug. When that subsided enough, Clint took the mic to explain he too planned to retire, hoping to focus on training a new generation of heroes to guard earth. Thor had his people to lead, but pledged his and their ongoing support of the Avengers. Nat and Bruce both declared their intent to continue working with their newer teammates, and when Steve approached the mic I expected the same.

“I was rescued, and tossed into battle against an alien invasion, in the same week,” he said. “Before that, my life for years was fighting. I’m—I’m kinda tired of it, to be honest. Any number of folks whose opinions I value have been telling me for years to get a life, something besides being Captain America, and maybe now is the time. So I’m retiring too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, there is a deli 3 doors from the address given for the Sanctum in Greenwich Village, and a tuna melt panini is one of their specialites! http://www.bleeckersfinestdeli.com/menu
> 
> The place the team orders dinner from is here: https://www.robertaspizza.com/menus
> 
> Nedry was the guy in the chair in Jurassic Park, so it’s the perfect nickname for Tony to give Ned. His nicknames for Harley come from the Duikes of Hazzard tv show, and obviously the famous motorcycle Harley Davidson.
> 
> Real life version of Tony's idea--https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/disabled-hands-successfully-replaced-with-bionic-prosthetics/  
> Here's my vision of how Tony looks at the team press conference; just add some scarring and that white hair on the right. https://thefw.com/robert-downey-jr-comic-con-2012/ I did not plan for him to enter the press briefing last, but he insisted. It reminds me of the closing credits for Endgame--I don't know what happened in the theater you saw it in, but in mine, when the credits reached their end and RDJ appeared on screen, the place went NUTS. So, consider this yet another of my small tributes to the guy who carried the MCU on his shoulders.
> 
> To be a full counselor in New York, you need at least a masters degree, so six years of school (four for undergrad plus two more). Even for Cap's serum-enhanced photographic memory it’d take a while, time Steve decides he wants to spend on other things. I don't know if he talked with Peg about it, but I know he got closure there, so maybe. And as for that dance, it did not happen at all as in canon; I wasn't planning to pursue it, but last night I found myself banging out a 1000 word outline, so stay tuned for a short later!


	38. Chapter 38

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Along with the rest of the universe, earth and the Avengers work to bring normalcy back to their lives. An exciting event is on the horizon--Tony and Pepper's long-awaited wedding--until Tony unearths a secret that threatens everything he thought he knew about himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm happy to hear that people don’t mind getting a few chapters after the final battle. That’s one among the many things Marvel robbed us of, imho, the chance to actually see the world being put to rights, and since people who died in canon did not die here, I felt it was appropriate to see them get started rebuilding their lives. Here's a longish chapter that touches on that from a lot of angles!

The first general public appearance of Tony Stark after the heroic feat that left him ‘a broken man’ got pushed to the side in the press by the shocking announcement that Steve Rogers, at the apparent peak of perfection, was walking away from the role of Captain America. Those who had seen Tony splashed all over TV and print and the internet for decades would assume that infuriated him. They did not know him at all. Frankly, the only issue Tony had about the whole thing was a minor fit of pouting that Steve hadn’t warned him first. “I’ve had more than my fill of being the eye of the media storm,” he said. “High time you got your turn in the barrel, Cap.”

We did have one deferred promise to keep, that in-person team interview I had pledged to Marcus Tate and never delivered on. I was debating contacting him to cancel, but both Steve and Tony seemed open, and the rest of the Avengers were willing to go along, so I set it up. Tate brought the same film crew, and the roundtable went off more like a reunion for the original team, as much so as having a journalist asking probing questions could, anyway. 

Queries about specific elements of how the Stones were obtained and of the final faceoff against Thanos were smoothly sidestepped all around. Clint talked about essentially adopting the Maximoffs, Thor about his Asgardians, and Nat about her baby spiders. Tate threw us a curve of his own when with cameras rolling he asked if he could hug Bruce. “You brought the person I love back to me,” he said, “and I would be remiss if I did not thank you.”

The new Avengers were offered a sit-down of their own, but unanimously preferred to sit with the rest. The twins’ usual mix of mischief and affection seemed to win the visitors over, and from my usual post behind the cameras, more than one seemed a little emotional when Wanda opened up a little about losing Vision. Sam talked about the contrasts between his past military life and being an Avenger now, and traded quips with Rhodey who shed light on his unique position balancing those two drastically different worlds at once.

Tate was clearly chomping at the bit to get hold of Steve, and Steve, while he clearly wasn’t about to get backed into a corner, was ready with some responses. “If I’m truthful, I might…have a little of what you call PTSD now. Not like I’m the only one here who probably does, but I won’t speak for anybody but myself. This whole experience has beat into my head that there’s more to life than fighting. If worse came to worse, I wouldn’t refuse to protect earth, but I think it’s going to be in great hands, especially if the hands I’m asking to take on the position of Captain America accept.”

“I’m guessing that would be your old friend Bucky Barnes?” Tate said.

My gut clenched—could it be, and Bucky not have told me?—but Steve laughed. “Bucky doesn’t even want to be an official Avenger, right now. One of these days, maybe, we can talk him into it, but he’s the best judge of what he can and should do. No, it’s this mook here,” he said and slapped Sam’s shoulder. That brought Sam in for another round of questions, which he fielded well though with an occasional glare Steve’s way.

“So,” Tate asked Steve, “what exactly do you plan to do with your life, now?”

“Not sure,” Steve said after a moment. “Maybe counseling, maybe pursue my art—it’s been on the back burner for too long.” I would have bet a bunch of green that outside this group, only veteran Cap fans like Phil even knew he was an artist. “And maybe…pursue a relationship?” 

He stopped there though, and would go no farther no matter how he was pressed, just laughing and shaking queries off (and not just from Tate, either. Tony threatened him with all sorts of bodily harm. “Holding out on your best friends, Spangles!” he growled under his breath. “You’ve been rogering, Rogers, and didn’t even give us the courtesy of approving them!” Steve was unrepentant, and even winked.)

Tate turned his attention to Tony last, and seemed convinced this announcement of his retirement would take about as well as the others had, physical evidence aside. Tony wasn’t having that. “Iron Man isn’t being yeeted onto any metaphorical scrap heap. I’m sure you’ll all see me flying around town again, eventually, once I heal and the tech is ready. But, yeah, this is it as far as fighting goes. I’m, ah, physically unsafe, I’d be more of a hindrance and I’m not going to put that on my friends and teammates. And too, the final push to take Thanos down—I came damn close to kissing Lady Death right on her cold lips. I could take that, if it was just me; but I remember, the look on Pe—on people’s faces, seeing that they thought, even if just for a moment, they were about to have to watch me die and be helpless to stop it. Call me selfish, won’t be the first time, but I will not be responsible for putting that look on the faces of people I love, ever again.”

That seemed to satisfy the interviewer, and when the piece was released, the ratings beat even the previous Avengers team convo, so it seemed to touch the public as well. Tony’s words reminded me of something I wanted to take him to task over, though. “You thought all along it might come down to you throwing yourself on the grenade, as Steve says, didn’t you?” I challenged him later. “You were acting a lot like you did back when the arc reactor made you sick. Giving your things away, not committing to the future, and not telling anybody again. Dammit, Tony…”

“Pep already called me out on that,” he confessed, shamefaced. “Says she picked it up when we were doing the telepathic two-step. I could’ve warned her, my brain’s a scary fucking place.” I did not relent until he sighed, “I’m sorry, cornbread. There. Happy? Got an apology out of a Stark—oof—” He shut up when I grabbed him and hugged him. That still was a good go-to.

I got back to my job, managing the public face of the Avengers and dealing with requests and comments from around the world, which for the time being were almost all thanks and praises and well-wishes. With Pepper’s presence in the battle safely covered, she got back to work too, juggling SI and wedding planning, with all the help she could ask for in the person of the rooftop squad and really everybody in our circle. One particularly entertaining incident occurred when a bitter ex-employee tried to make off with some proprietary tech; Spider-Man left him hanging, literally, and Pep and SI legal left him without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out. (I almost had to get JARVIS to call for backup when I told Bucky about that—he literally lay down on the floor and rolled laughing.)

Between his business and Avengers techmongering, Tony had a full plate too. Helen called to ask for his help for a colleague of hers in China, worried about some new strain of virus sprouting there; she thought what he and Bruce had engineered for Extremis might be adaptable to lick this weirdo bug. The science bros spent some nights conferring long-distance with Shuri about the matter. “If we can dissect the thing and she and Professor Superstar can come up with a vaccine, I could jump into another timeline, find their Tony and get him to run the trials-- fourteen months or so for observations, for efficacy and safety, on average. Deuce’d do it, if I can find him and all’s good in his verse. Then I could jump back a minute or two later, home time, and go back later to pick up Other Tony’s work,” he enthused. Pepper did not approve, though I pointed out it could have been worse; he could have been plotting to inject himself and spend fourteen months in another timeline. 

While that crew put their plans together, Tony worked on an upgraded brace for his arm and threatened to get tattoos engraved on it. “I always thought about getting a tattoo,” Nat mused, and why did she say that, because the next thing we knew Steve was happily flinging sketches around with ideas for a design that incorporated symbols for all six of the original team, and Tony was on the phone with Wanda trying to cook up an ink that wouldn’t get eaten up by Steve’s serum, or vanish when Bruce shifted.

For a while, the latter looked like it might be a big ol’ moot point, since Bruce was hesitant. “Hulk never liked needles,” he reminded his teammates. “I’ll ask him, though. He’s still, here, y’know.” To his surprise, and the other Avengers’ pleasure, Bruce’s green side, once he understood the proposal, was actually excited at the idea of having something permanent in common with the friends he had so fiercely protected for years.

Earth continued to be restored. Peter was back to web-swinging around town, and Harley was plotting to build his own junior Iron Man suit. Wakanda rebuilt its forces, and New Asgard grew from a glorified fishing village to a genuine city, if a small one. Communications with all of our friends around the planet improved when Tony, his augmented arm working to his satisfaction for the time being, tackled another idea he said he’d been chewing over for a while. Somehow, Lord only knew how, he charmed Carol into loaning him her pager, dissected it and studied the alien tech inside. (She did threaten him with all manner of bodily harm if he couldn’t put it back together in working order, her love for Rhodey notwithstanding.) Once he had that licked, he married it to kimoyo technology (I have no clue how he got hold of those. Before anybody asks, no, it was not me.) and slid the whole resulting shebang into a slimmed-down version of the time GPS chassis. The finished product looked a little like a Disney World magic band, and Tony happily handed them out to all and sundry. “The next time earth gets invaded I don’t intend to have to wait for Rainbow Dash’s rider to have to drag you away from your Call of Duty tournament, or hauling in nets full of herring, or what the hell ever you’re doing now that you’ve gone cottagecore, point break,” he told Thor as he handed a set over for the Asgardian contingent.

“These will work beyond earth? I see you have gifted Captain Danvers with one, and that box yonder is marked for the Guardians.” When Tony confirmed, Thor went on, “I’m…thinking of traveling with them, for a while. Only a while! Loki would threaten to knife me if, as he puts it, I fucked off to space and left him to run things alone again. Not my intent! I have already made arrangements for Brunhilde to be king in my brief absence. She already has an eye out for a queen.” I bet I knew who was first on the short list for that gig. “When I went back to Asgard for the Reality Stone, and talked with mother—well, I told you all some of the wise counsel she gave me. I’m not made for ruling, really. That may change, with time and seasoning, but definitely not now. Brun, though, she is a born leader, and she will serve New Asgard well.” He patted Tony on the back, as gently as I’d ever seen him be. “I’m not going anywhere until the good ship _Benatar_ and her crew return to see Pepper make a married man of you, though, so get about it!”

That day was drawing closer—Tony was recovering more function all the time. Ironically, that seemed to disturb him. “I’m getting a little more movement back in my fingers,” he fretted one day when Pep and I dragged him out of his workshop for lunch. “Sensation’s improving too, not enough, but somewhat. That’s not supposed to happen, from everything Shuri and Helen said. I’d ask Strange, but who knows what he’d say.”

“If you have to think of something to worry about, hot rod,” I sighed, “getting better shouldn’t be it. The Stones mentioned you were stronger than they expected, and you said you always healed fast.”

He shrugged, and we changed the subject. Happy had continued his checks on the lake house, after the battle and regularly during Tony’s convalescence. Pepper was laying plans to move back there after the wedding, while Tony debated which AI should hold sway where. “Hell, I can’t decide,” he groused. “Maybe I’ll let them work it out. They’ve been in each other’s pockets since Fri—reactivated, or whatever the hell happened to her.”

“I think we know what happened to her, Tony,” Pepper returned.

“Yeah, no. I mean I know, when—” He waved his bum arm. “She was there, and J and the bots, but I have no clue what the fuck to make of the fact. I refuse to let myself think too hard about that, or I might OD on hubris and wake up challenging Thor and Loki for deity status.” Pepper just shook her head. “What, Potts, you’re already a goddess, I need to keep up.” I resolved the next time we got a visit from Asgard, I would ask Loki for an opinion on the matter of AIs with souls. He wouldn’t give me a straight answer, but I did notice his usual trading of cheeky insults with Tony seemed to be tinged with a new note of respect now.

Loki wasn’t the only one whose attitude toward Tony had undergone some upgrades. Scott and Hope came to visit, bringing Scott’s little girl Cassie, who had indirectly helped set the events that saved the universe into motion. They also brought Hope’s parents, so obviously her dad hadn’t disowned her. Tony looked a little discomfited at meeting with the guy who had had some pretty unpleasant backstory with his dad, but they vanished into the tower library for a while. By the time they emerged, I had a vat of Brunswick stew heating, and Pepper had invited the whole family to stay for supper and come back for the wedding. Scott was his usual ditsy self, Cassie got the entire tower contingent wrapped around her tiny fingers, and Hank Pym was apologetic in a crusty way.

“Pep,” Tony sighed after they left, “you know I’d be fine with calling Rhodey, dressing Chrissy up, and us all sneaking off to city hall. Or realistically, something small at the lake—Bluebell did promise if the Guardians tried to back out, she’d kill them all and fly the _Benatar_ back herself, and you know her, I’m not altogether sure she was kidding, so we should do something akin to an actual wedding, I guess, but considering I’m the one usually accused of being a media whore, this is getting a little large—"

Pepper stopped him right there, and led him to the nearest window. Curious, the rest of us trailed along and followed her finger pointing down toward the street, where a sizable group of people with signs were gathered. “That’s the smallest number that’s been there since we got back,” she informed him. “So many of the major events in our lives together have been so painful, Tony, and so negative. It just—occurs to me, maybe, it’s time we did something positive, in public, and gave them all a chance to see.”

Tony stared down, and then at her. “Honey,” he said softly, as if they were the only two people in the room, “I remember what you’ve said, about modeling when you were young, how you didn’t like that gaze. This is for us. You, and me, and that’s all that matters. Don’t feel like you have to—to put on Garth Brooks on the Great Lawn of Central Park, for the world.”

“Oh, nobody’s going to be looking at me,” she replied breezily. “It’s more likely everybody’s focus is going to be on you.” He pulled back a little, looking like he couldn’t decide whether to be pleased or appalled. “And we have so many people now that we care about, who would you want to leave out, seriously?” She tapped her fingernail on her lip. “The Great Lawn. That’s a thought. JARVIS, contact the Conservancy and get information about booking weddings, please? There’s room for a spaceship to land…Chrissy, could you help me with invitations? And I have another thing to ask of you, closer to whatever date we set…”

I gulped, then dove in. We pared the guest list down to a few hundred; I ordered invites and Pepper started browsing for bakers. She said, with a mischievous glint in her eye, that she had someone lined up for the dress, and had had the design in mind for years. It wasn’t a surprise; this was Pep, after all. My friend ran a business empire; she could organize a big-ass wedding without breaking a sweat. (And that other thing she wanted to ask of me? Maid of honor!)

Once Tony got over the shock, he flung himself into the idea, though his initial contribution was to go through the heaps of science stuff in the tower and do things with it. A lot was being donated to schools, a lot more was going to a discreet and secure disposal area, some was packed for storage, and a little was earmarked to the lake house. When I got my work caught up enough to consider a couple of days off, and a trip I’d been wanting to make for literally years, he was threatening to make good on his words the day of the snap, and haul Bucky and me down to the dungeon to help him go through the dusty boxes of Howard’s old records. “I think I’ll just have J scan them all into his memory, then dispose of them appropriately,” he said. “Some might be good museum fodder, nice tax write-off and good for historians. I need to get eyes on them all first, though. Don’t imagine there’s anything in there that’d still be classified, but you never know. Might be some mementoes Cap would like to keep—or notes on projects I wouldn’t want anybody else to get their mitts on. Sure, Coulson’s been running SHIELD, and I’d trust Agent with most things, but…” I agreed, and Tony sighed a little. “Got to admit though, cornbread, I’m halfway hoping for something that won’t ever be found on paper. The Howard I met, I talked to, in 1970, he was nervous, but so excited to meet his son…what made him into the cold fish I remember? A little more closure would be nice!”

Tony had to find backup assistance for that job, however, because I already had plans. I needed to take Bucky to Tennessee to meet my family. Steve dropped us off on his way to meet with a group of local heroes in Mexico City, and the visit was a good one. For once, nobody was complaining or casting aspersions on the Avengers. Tony and Bruce were universally praised. The only complaint I heard in the three days came from Bucky, in fact; he pulled me aside at one point and grumbled, “Still makin’ me crazy you don’t take any credit.”

Avonelle reluctantly approved of Bucky. “He’s got some spit and vinegar to him. Not sold on that bun of hair, not that he looks girly or nothin’.”

“Remember your history, auntie,” I told her. “George Washington had a ponytail!”

“True enough,” she conceded. “So does that cute boy who plays Alexander Hamilton up yonder on Broadway.”

“Auntie!” I laughed. “How did you become a Lin-Manuel Miranda fangirl?”

She huffed. “We have computers, honey! Anyway. Since you’re gonna let that Pepper gal marry young Stark, I reckon this boy’ll do,” she said with tongue firmly in cheek. “You’re mighty fine-lookin’, for a fella already a hundred. I won’t be till next year,” she confided to my boyfriend, who was thoroughly smitten by her.

I winced, though; if she was forgetting her age, that didn’t bode well for the future. “Auntie,” cousin Holly said gently, “we had your hundredth birthday party last summer, remember?”

Instead of taking offense, or arguing, Avonelle smirked. “I lied about my age so I could marry Alfred in 1936. I was sixteen, but Tennessee law said I had to have my parents’ consent unless I was seventeen, an’ I give myself a lil’ extra edge by sayin’ I was eighteen. Y’all never knew,” she cackled and thumped her walker grip for emphasis. 

When Steve called to arrange our pickup, I cautioned him to watch where he landed. I didn’t want Uncle Jake scolding him for landing on the lawn, the way he had Rhodey. So the quinjet carefully set down in the driveway, and Avonelle got to meet another Avenger. She was delighted, and rattled on about how she had watched newsreels of him and Bucky and their Howlies. With walker firmly in hand, she even insisted on walking out to the jet with us. “I flew one time, back in the fifties, in a rattletrap old prop plane, and I promised the Lord, if he’d let me get my feet on solid ground again, I would never tempt him like that again.” She gazed at the machine’s sleek lines, then peered over at me. “Reckon how het up he’d get at me if I took that back?”

“If you’d like a ride around, we’ve got the time,” Steve offered.

“I had my sights set on somethin’ a tad longer,” she admitted.

“You’d like to go to New York,” I guessed and grinned.

“It’d be right nice to see some town bigger’n Memphis, so I got somethin’ to compare the Heavenly City to, when I get there.” She matched my grin with her own. “And maybe even go to a grand, rich folks’ weddin’, while I’m there.”

“I think I can arrange that,” I pledged. “Bring whichever cousin along you like, and y’all can stay in the guest suite on my floor. Tony and Pepper will both be thrilled, I’m sure. Tony may decide to keep you though.”

Avonelle sniffed. “I have my own home, thank you, and my own life. I don’t need me no sugar daddy.”

To their everlasting credit, both Steve and Bucky managed to control their howls of laughter until we were on board and safely in the air. “She’s so damn _cute_ ,” Bucky wheezed. “Sass runs in your family.” 

Back at the tower, Pepper was, as I had expected, delighted to hear we would need two more slots on the wedding guest list. “Tony will definitely be happy,” she said. “He’s down in the basement going through his father’s registers. Probably, he’s sitting reading something and taking notes—he can’t get anything packed, he finds something interesting and off down the bunny trail he goes.”

“Typical,” I laughed. “I’ll go give him my news, and maybe crack the whip just a bit.”

I greeted JARVIS (he and FRIDAY were still deciding who wanted to work where, from what he told me) and rode down to the dungeon. When I stepped off the elevator, I didn’t see Tony at first. I took a few steps and was about to call out when I spied him sitting on the floor. Notebooks, charts and folders carpeted the concrete around him—Pep was right, he’d rolled down some scientific rabbit hole dug by his dad’s papers, I was sure.

The next moment, I wasn’t so sure. My enhanced hearing caught a noise from that direction, maybe a gasp, or maybe a sob; and he sat huddled in an odd position, bent over his damaged arm lying in his lap. Instantly, I thought _did he fall? Is he in pain? Is he just having a delayed reaction to all the shit he’s been through?_ “Tony?” I called and broke into a trot. His good hand shot out and closed on a bunch of the scattered pages, but let go when I dropped to the floor beside him and reached for me instead. I gathered him into my arms, horribly aware he was shivering. “Hey, it’s okay, whatever it is it’s gonna be all right. Here, I’ll get JARVIS to call Pep—”

“No,” he gasped. “Not—not yet, please, Chrissy, I can’t…”

I didn’t want to hold him too tightly for fear he was hurting, but I drew him a little closer. “If you’re sure, _ubhuti_. Is it okay if I stay with you?” 

He gave a little hum that seemed meant to be “uh-huh”. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him this upset and I did not want to leave him alone—yeah, JARVIS was here, but as much as he loved his creator he couldn’t hug him or rub his back while he hid his face in my shoulder. Completely at a loss, I looked over the documents surrounding us, as much as I could from this spot. Even with my enhanced vision, I couldn’t make out what a lot of them were. A small stack of old-fashioned composition notebooks sat near my knee, the topmost one open and its pages covered with fine precise handwriting. A manila folder lay nearby, graphs of some kind spilling out; the lines drawn on the closest one in colored pencil traced upward paths against dates: 1974, 1975, 1976 and so forth. From another folder beside it peeked the top of a data form headed in neat hand-printing SSS REPLICATION TRIALS.

Right about then, Tony shifted a little and blinked up at me, and my stomach felt like I’d swallowed a rock. No, more like an Infinity Stone. “Better?” I asked quietly. He shrugged. “Tony, I’m not prying, but this stuff looks like the records where your dad was working on recreating the super-soldier serum…?” His curt nod just made the sick feeling worse. I remembered one especially worrisome thing he had found in SHIELD’s summary of the work that had cost Howard and his wife their lives. “The, uh…the human trial you told me about…is it in here?” _Oh shit_ , I prayed, _Lord, he just had one halfway decent moment with his dad, please don’t let him have found out Howard hurt somebody for his precious fucking science, please._

After one more shuddery breath, Tony said quietly, “It’s here. It’s all here, and it explains everything.” I frowned. “The human trial wasn’t an organized test. The notes are observational, after an accidental needle stick. It wasn’t an experiment at all. It was an accident…it was me.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops.
> 
> notes on other things, while your brain absorbs that shock:  
> Rogering is an old slang term for having sex btw, so Tony is ragging on Steve on multiple levels when he mentions getting into a relationship to the interviewer. lol
> 
> Yes, that is the virus you think it is. It's not getting a toehold in this verse, not if our Avengers have anything to say about it.
> 
> If you'd like to see what Pepper is dealing with in considering a wedding in Central Park, https://www.nycgovparks.org/rules/section-2-08 
> 
> Remember, since there was no stupid 5 year gap, this story all takes place in 2019, in case you got confused at all by the discussion of ages and times. lol


	39. Chapter 39

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony explains what he's found in Howard's files, and frets about what this may do to his future with Pepper. Chrissy talks him off the metaphorical ledge and they enlist help to investigate, but not before another secret...or two...are revealed.

_Hellfire, it’s happened_ , the journal entry Tony handed me with shaky hands began. _I looked forward to becoming a father, I was nervous and afraid I’d fail at it, and now I have. Tony’s so smart beyond his age, sometimes I forget he isn’t much more than a baby. He was playing in the workshop, and I told him to stay right where he was, and play with his bits of wire and nuts and bolts—but there was a brightly colored bit of scrap in the garbage can, and he’s only three. How the hell could I have expected him not to be tempted? I found him sitting on the floor crying, with a discarded syringe stuck in the side of his arm. He’d tried to get it out, but his chubby little fingers don’t have the dexterity—if anything, he may have depressed the plunger more and shot the leftover droplets of trial 73-39 into his tiny body._

_I don’t even believe in a god, but I’m praying with everything in me that my stupidity hasn’t harmed my baby boy. Tony is the heir to my legacy, the child Maria yearned for, and truth be said, me too. I’ve known almost since he was born he was going to be the one who could bring my dreams to life, the ones we don’t yet have the technology to achieve. Perhaps I’ve doted too much on him. Like a fool, I allowed him into places a toddler should never be, and now, maybe it’s too late._

“Oh, Tony…” I gasped.

He shook his head. “He never mentioned any identifying features in the notes he let SHIELD have. As far as they knew, it was just documentation on a failed experiment. That’s all I was, to him, I guess, in the end, a failed—”

“No!” I caught Tony’s shoulder. “Don’t you see this? The hurt is just pouring off the page here. Listen. _‘I’ve been too indulgent, and maybe put too much of my own expectations on him, but it’s not just that. He’s such a GOOD child. How did something so pure come from me? Tony’s a joy, so curious, eager to please and to learn and to create, wanting to be wherever I am. That’s got to stop. What I deal with is far too dangerous. What a fool I’ve been. No more letting him into the workshop or lab. I’ve spoiled him, and it’s going to hurt to train him out of touching, but it must be done. As bad as this may be, a next time could be far worse! Better he grow up thinking me harsh, than not grow up at all.’”_ I swallowed back emotion. “It wasn’t meanness, then. It was fear.”

I knew that hint of a glare Tony was giving me, the set of his jaw that said he had his mind made up. “That’s dated late 1973, a few months before his last Stark Expo. There’s video he recorded about it, in the crate of his things Fury gave me. I wandered into frame, at one point, and he snaps for somebody to get me out of there, take me to my mom.”

“Because he had to be consistent,” I pointed out as I paged through the notebook and read aloud again. “ _‘I’ve been going about this parenting thing all wrong, I suppose. No surprise there, I’ve never been good at personal relations, but further failure is not an option where my child is concerned. If through good fortune I haven’t harmed Tony irreparably, I must protect him better, emotions be damned. No one must know about this though. If Maria knew how negligent I’ve been, she would kill me, or maybe have Jarvis kill me, or they both would, and God knows I deserve it. I’ll have to watch the boy closely, keep records of every variable that the serum could affect. SHIELD can have copies of those, since they’re expecting experimental data, but they can’t know whence it came. I’ll dole it out to them in installments, because I’m not touching that damned serum again.’”_

“He didn’t.” Tony finally began to sound like he was listening. “I didn’t even know he had ever worked on it, until I got the SHIELD files.” He leaned over my shoulder and scanned the pages. “Look at this in the margin. _‘more important than ever to find Rogers—possible key to reversing any adverse effects Tony might suffer’_. Fuck!”

“That could be why you said you remembered him being obsessed with the search for Captain America,” I realized and scanned the next pages, pausing when I spotted another familiar name. _“’I wanted Peg to be a part of his life, but she’s too sharp. She’d twig to something being up. It breaks my heart because she already thinks little of me as a person, for just cause, admittedly. I can’t let her know my carelessness could have cost my innocent little man his life. I wanted Tony to grow up with his fierce aunt Peg to shield him, but now, that can never be._

_‘I do this all the time. I start with the clarity of science, thrilled by the pursuit, then I falter, I compromise, and ultimately, I fall by my own damned hand. Someday, when he’s older, I can sit him down, if I have the nerve, and explain all this. He won’t forgive me, but at least maybe he’ll understand why I did what I had to do.’"_ Just reading it woke the pain the man must have felt, and woke haunting echoes of another past for me too. “You come by it honest, I see.”

“Come again?”

“It’s the same damn thing you were doing when the palladium made you sick. Howard was pushing you away to protect you from getting injured, just like you were pushing everybody who loved you away to try and keep them from being hurt when you died, just like you were just doing when you thought you might not survive reversing the snap, mister.”

I elbowed him gently. He still had that half-pout of defiance, but it was wobbling. He stared down at the notebook in my lap, and traced a line with his metal-clad fingers. “We create our own demons,” he said softly. “I’d pretty much persuaded myself I wouldn’t find what I was looking for in here. I’d already come to terms with the father I remembered; I decided he’d done his best. Resentment is corrosive, Dr. Rausch says, and she’s on the mark. Plus, the Howard I met on the time heist was in another timeline, after all. He wasn’t the man who raised me, using the term loosely, so I refused to expect any answers. But I forgot, we chose those timelines deliberately to be as close to our own as possible.”

“To maximize the chance the Stones would be where we needed them to be. I remember,” I nodded. “And to minimize the risk of borking up the time-space continuum.”

He actually laughed a little. “Borking it up. Nice technical term, cornbread.”

“Up yours, hot rod.” 

We jostled each other briefly, my heart lifting at his improved mood, then crashing the next moment when he pulled the graphs I’d seen from their folder and took a deep shuddery breath. “So, wanna see how big of a freak I actually am?”

“I already know how big of a freak you are, _ubhuti_ ," I said and stuck out my tongue. "Seriously though, the SHIELD notes, if I’m recalling right, said the ‘experimental subject’,” I went full-on Thor and added the air quotes, “didn’t show any effects to speak of.”

“Maybe he gave them bullshit, so they wouldn’t come drag me off to their playroom,” he retorted and started to peruse the charts, occasionally turning the papers sideways to read more marginal notes. “He was looking for me to become a perfect physical specimen, like Cap. Sorry, old man.”

“Was he hoping for it, or just watching?”

Tony shrugged. “He was a little disappointed I seemed to be slow in hitting a growth spurt, that’s the only comment along those lines, in these docs anyway…He documented everything, how much I slept, ate, how fast my skinned knees healed. I remember him talking about ‘toughening me up’, taking my books and gears away and shoving me outside to play. I guess—maybe he was looking for this stuff? Because this is all he noted down, the same things he reported to SHIELD, and I’ve always known I healed fast.”

“The Stones said you were stronger than they expected,” I breathed, and reflected on how this accident might in the end have helped save the universe. Emphasis on _helped_ ; it was Tony’s sheer courage and love that had carried us all through. “And I’ve always said you survived shit that should have killed anybody else. Afghanistan, Siberia, Sokovia, all the Avengers’ escapades, and then all this last mess with Thanos and his mob.” I thought for a minute in silence while he grunted and hmm’ed his way through the graphs and data sheets. “Bucky told me that the doctor who gave Steve his serum said it enhanced a person’s natural attributes.”

“Dare I ask what it did to Cap?”

“Made him more contrary, to hear Bucky tell it,” I grinned. “As for Bucky, he thinks it made him more patient, more precise; and I wonder if the majorly protective nature that Zima had was amped up by that too.”

Tony was quiet. “You think it made me a bigger asshole?”

I groaned loudly. “ _I_ think it made your sweet generous heart even bigger.” He rolled his eyes, but I gave him a glare that dared him to argue with me.

We searched through the files and found more eye-opening data points. True to his vow, Howard had completely stopped work on the serum between the time Tony was exposed and 1981. “That’s the year they sent me to boarding school,” Tony remarked. “Howard seemed so happy. Maybe it was because he could go back to mixing his secret sauce.” 

Proof to the contrary, however, appeared in another of Howard’s journals. _“’I’m going to miss him, even the little bit he wants to be around me now that he’s creeping up on his teens. Who can blame him—I wouldn’t want to be around me. It’s a relief, to know he’s away and safe from any more mistakes I might make. He can work on becoming the genius I know he is, without his old man getting in the way. It’s been hard not to brag on him to his face, but I didn’t want him to get a big head; those can be as damaging as any lab accident. I made damn sure everybody I knew was well aware he was smarter than any dozen other guys.’”_

“HOMER heard him at SHIELD, talking about me.” Tony’s tone turned thoughtful, as though finally starting to accept the evidence that maybe instead of hating him, his father had made a mistake, tried to correct it, and then made more, but made them out of love and fear and guilt. “And Fury always said I was wrong about him. Maybe not as wrong as the one-eyed jack said, but maybe…not as right as I thought I was.”

“May be,” I agreed, and sent up a silent prayer of thanks. ”Now, I hope to shout that you asked me not to call Pepper down here right away so you could grasp the extent of what you’d found, and get yourself together, and not because you weren’t going to tell her, else I will stand you up and break my foot off in that epic ass of yours.”

“I may need help standing up, miss superhero, but not like that!” he shot back, then sobered. “I—I thought about it, okay? Not telling her, I mean. _Thought_ about it,” he forestalled me with a raised hand before I ripped into him, “for all of a couple of seconds. I promised her, no more keeping things from her, especially if they involve her, and this, fuck, this involves her in the most painfully intimate way. I want her to have our babies, I want it so much, but now I’m afraid to try! Wouldn’t surprise me if she wants an annulment, now.”

“Uh, hot rod, you can’t get an annulment when you aren’t married yet.”

“Yeah. We are. Married, I mean. When I got back from scenic outer space, Pep flatly refused to wait one more minute, and the padre in Wakanda, Shaman Utu, came in to touch base and we—sort of commandeered him?”

It had been a good long while since I had been rendered utterly speechless by shock. “Butter my ass and call me a biscuit,” I finally managed. “You little shit. No, make that plural. Pepper didn’t tell me either. She’s assembling a damn wedding in Central freaking Park!! What the actual hell?”

“Well, to be honest, we weren’t sure it was official. Still aren’t, really. There’s no US consulate in Wakanda yet to ask, and we didn’t get anything on paper, not that anybody would dare accuse the high shaman of lying. For a man of the cloth, he definitely looks like he can take care of himself and anybody else that needs it…Anyway, we’re considering this a dramatic reenactment, but for all intents and purposes of inheritance and US law and what have you, it’ll be the real deal. Assuming it does happen, now. And nobody knows, by the way, so it’s not like we singled you out. Rhodey would kill us both probably if he knew.”

As the shock abated, I started to giggle, remembering the shaman’s quiet calm, and how he had seemed oddly pleased when I met him coming out of Tony’s hospital room. Then I caught on to the uncertainty he had tossed into his chatter, with his usual planned casualness. “Assuming it happens? Tony, listen to yourself. Do you really have that low an opinion of Pepper? Don’t answer that, I know you do not. The freaking universe itself couldn’t pull her away from you, what makes you think this could? Sure, I know she wants to have your babies, but you can’t think that would be a deal breaker. Bucky and I have talked about that, actually. You’ve unofficially adopted kids already, and done a good job of it—no, don’t give me any lip, it’s true and I’m gonna say it. Besides, you don’t know that there’s any reason you can’t make perfectly good babies.”

He winced. “After the palladium caper, I, ah, got a fertility check, because heavy metal and all. My little swimmers were buck wild then and seemed normal, as normal as anything associated with me can be at least, but they didn’t check my DNA. No reason to look for—for genetic polymorphisms—” He sniffed, rubbed his neck and looked away. “Mutations,” he finished in a flat tone that carried more fear and grief than the most vocal breakdown. “Damage, that might damage my children.”

I realized what he was thinking. “Tony, wait. Bucky and I weren’t hesitant to get pregnant because of him. It was because of me. Shuri found Extremis had bonded with my DNA, remember, but she sent you that info to clear Pep. She hasn’t checked Bucky’s yet, but I know her theory was that the serum didn’t affect genetic material.”

That didn’t seem to convince him, weirdly, since pronouncements from the mouth of Shuri usually carried the weight of the holy word with him. “Yeah, but…I keep thinking, gamma radiation interacting with Bruce’s homebrew serum sprouted big green, and I just took a fuckin massive hit of that from our infinite little friends.”

“Ouch.” I refused to shudder, even though what he said was true and chilled me to my core. “So, get Shuri to analyze your DNA for any—differences.” ‘Mutations’ was not a word I intended to ever use in referring to Tony, ever. “Or Bruce. He’s right here, after all. Do that first, if he can get it done in a timely manner, and that way you’ll have hard data to take to Pep.”

“Hard data,” Tony agreed with a vigorous nod. “Yeah, yeah, data is good. I'll do that."

We sat together for a while, organizing the papers by topic and stacking them for JARVIS to scan, and I led the conversation down other paths. As Pepper had guessed, he was elated to hear of Avonelle’s request. “I would keep her, too,” he affirmed. “Not like I have any fam of the past generation, unless I count Cap and Bumble as the weird cousins.” His smile was wistful, now. “This,” he said with a wave of his brace-clad hand toward our now finished work, “it’s another thing I thought I knew about Howard that turned out to not be so? All my life, it was a part of reality; sky’s blue, water’s wet, my old man hates me. Now to find out it was all a—a misguided but well-intentioned attempt to protect me? Rocks my world, not gonna lie.” I could barely imagine, but as we finished up, I tried to remind him that the outcome of some tests weren’t going to cost him the love of those around him. 

I gave it a day or two, then dropped by Bruce’s lab, supposedly to get some info for a press release about his web series. While there, I casually turned the subject to Tony, and quickly found out he had read his science bro in. Bruce was suitably horrified, but all in to help; he had already taken samples and was starting the assessment protocol, in fact. “I, ah, already had all the reagents and supplies needed for it,” he confessed. “When Nat and I were dating more seriously, I ran a full profile on my semen. I didn’t want to risk fathering a baby Hulk. Turns out I’m infertile, though, and besides—well, never mind. With everything in hand, it’ll only take a few days to run every test imaginable.”

Sure enough, after a few days, a lot of praying, and drowning myself in work so I wouldn’t worry (I didn’t have blood sibs, but I’m told worrying is part of a sister’s job description, okay?) the results came back with—nothing. “Literally the only thing out of the ordinary at all,” Bruce said, “is elevated levels of a specific protein. It just so happens that Helen got me an advance copy of a very interesting study that shows that protein to be associated with enhanced healing. If Erskine was right that his serum increased what was already present in the recipient, and Howard was on the right track with his, the tiny dose Tony would have been exposed to may just have kicked the gene that produces that protein into high gear. Otherwise, there’s nothing unusual about his genetic material at all.”

“Whew,” I sighed with relief. “Get your best suit cleaned, my friend. Looks like we are still on for a wedding!” 

Tony, being Tony, was still half certain Pepper would throw him out of his own tower when he went to her with the latest in a long line of, shall we say, surprises, in their lives together. Little did he, or any of us know, that for once Pepper had a surprise to top his.

“Potts. What do you mean, you’re pregnant??”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howard's journal passages writing about his own failings and Tony's reply were inspired by Tony's words at the end of IM3. I kinda like the idea maybe part of why they butted heads was that underneath, they are more alike than either ever realized--though honestly, it didn't occur to me until I was already constructing this part of the narrative that what Howard ends up doing, and hurting Tony so much in the process, is so much like what Tony's done more than once during this series. The difference is, Tony's had people in his adult life who loved him and wouldn't let him get away with presuming he knew best how to protect them from hurt.
> 
> I don’t mean by this chapter to say that all kids who feel their parents are bad or abusive or mean are wrong, far from it. I know what its like to have a parent talk a good game, then show another face. This is just a theory I had to explain why the Howard we see early in the MCU timeline, the one Fury talks about knowing, isn’t the one Tony remembers. And honestly, I love Tony so damn much, I wanted to give him some happy closure with his old man. So sue me. lol
> 
> And of course a couple of my usual nerdy end notes--the serum batch Tony got accidentally exposed to is numbered 73-39. It's reasonable that Howard would have tagged batches by the year, so 73 is that, but I tagged it 39 in honor of Tales of Suspense issue 39, the first appearance of Iron Man! 
> 
> MC53 is the genetic protein Bruce mentions, and the study did come out shortly after this chapter would have happened. It's written by a team of Chinese researchers, so it seems logical that Helen would've gotten Bruce a copy. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12483-0


	40. Chapter 40

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally! the big day arrives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This really is about the length of two of my usual chapters, but I felt like it was time to get everybody settled! Like Tony and Pepper, who couldn't wait another minute back in Wakanda to get married, I can't wait any longer either. lol

With that bombshell dropped, it was, as they say where I grew up, all over but the shouting, and there wasn’t much of that. Pepper did make abundantly clear that Tony would not like the consequences if he piss-farted around until she got too big to fit into her dress, and once he was finally reassured she didn’t intend to kick him to the curb, the plans moved into a whole other gear. 

Tony being Tony, he wasn’t quite ready to let this revelation about himself drop. He wanted his team to know the truth, and to apologize for worrying them over the years with his reckless actions, since he had had an edge, however slight, all along from his exposure to his dad’s experiment. The little fact that he himself didn’t even know he had a tiny extra advantage over the average genius billionaire inventor superhero didn’t seem to occur to him, and when I went out of my way to point it out, he, more importantly, didn’t care. Nothing would do him but to gather all Avengers together and spill his guts. Ironic, when you thought about how jealously he had guarded every shred of his personal intel for years, that he trusted this group now with every shred: ironic, and wonderful.

He made a particularly elaborate profession of repentance to Steve, for that long-ago cheap shot about how everything good about Captain America came out of a bottle. “Which, granted, was under the influence of a bitchy Infinity Stone, but still, glass houses, stones, all that—”

“Shut up, Tony,” Steve groaned. “Just—shut up, okay? This does make sense though. I’ve been wondering a long time what made Howard change so drastically, maybe this was it. But, no, Tony, nothing about you came out of a bottle.”

“Well, except your hair color,” Clint chimed in long-distance.

“Wish you were here for me to throw something at, Barton,” Tony retorted, but with a hopeful small smile.

“I…might have a confession to make, along those lines,” Nat unexpectedly offered. “Not Tony’s hair; the enhancement factor, I mean. I’ve never been able to get hold of the Black Widow project files, but it’s been rumored that some of us were used as experimental guinea pigs, when we were too young to remember. It’s irrelevant after all this time, I suppose, but I don’t know with any certainty that I was, or was not, or what effects if any might have resulted.”

Among the expressions of support, Clint burst out, “Wait, this makes me the token squishy human now? Unfair! No, Wilson, you don’t count, you got wings, and Rhodes, you got a—a carapace, so—”

“Carapace!” Wanda exclaimed from beside him with a laugh. “Such vocabulary!”

“What?” Clint challenged her. “I’m a stay-at-home dad now, I’ve been helping your brother with his online classes.”

“The stay at home part’s the reason you've got so squishy, Clint,” Bucky chimed in. I elbowed him and he grabbed it to start a playful mini-tussle.

“Another mystery solved,” Thor added beaming in from New Asgard, “the unexplainable Tony Stark—although to be honest, still unexplainable, just a hair’s breadth less so.”

Avengers chuckled all around. “Okay!” Tony said brightly. “Good talk, everyone. Anybody have any other admissions to make? Growing extra limbs, anybody? Sam, learned to talk to birds yet? Anyone?”

A thought suddenly came to me, and I acted on it before I could second-guess myself. “I, um, did have something I thought I should share with the class,” I offered. Bucky gave me a sharp look, but his hand on my arm remained, steadying me as I explained the uncertainty about Extremis. The reaction was as supportive as ever, and I breathed a sigh of relief and got on with what I still and always would consider my real job.

The biggest thing on my plate other than the wedding was an impending interview Time magazine had requested with Tony, for a cover story. It went off without a hitch, Tony as smooth as ever. As people had almost come to expect, he dropped a few bits of personal insight—not the ones he had himself just learned, but opening up a bit about dealing with the limitations of his damaged arm and its future. “I’m dreaming big, the baddest prosthetic ever, if it comes down to that, and Princess Shuri and the Wakandan Design Group are collectively salivating over the prospect of collaborating on it. I’m not making that choice alone, though. Miss Potts has some skin in that game too, pardon the pun, and we have some major decisions to make on a number of fronts. Like the look. I of course want Iron Man aesthetic all the way. So does she, even though she won’t admit it; she’s a techie-sexual, or maybe just a Tony-sexual. Anyway, that’s going on the back burner until after the honeymoon. Is this coming out before the wedding? It’ll be online with enough advance time for you to remind everybody to come to the park on the day in question, right? I’m renting big screens, just hang out and celebrate with us, okay? Wish I could offer an open bar, but even I can’t afford that.”

When I wasn’t doing what my paycheck was supposed to be compensating me for, I was running through virtual rehearsals (that’s Tony for you—instead of getting the park shut down for a dry run, he got JARVIS and FRIDAY to work together to project the whole place in VR), and helping Pepper send out wedding invites and track RSVP’s. “Phil’s confirmed with a plus one. Can’t wait to see who that is,” Pepper mused, taking a sip of her ginger ale then glaring at it like it just insulted her shoes. “You better be worth this, peanut.”

“You know they are,” I teased and patted her still flat(ish) belly. “Settled on a name yet?”

“Lots of ideas, nothing definitive.” She pored over the linked lists on our tablets. “Harley’s mother and sister’ll be here tomorrow—I have a suite set for them—and your aunt and cousin then too, right? I did decide to invite Maya—remember, I wasn’t sure how Tony would feel about it, but when I got in touch with her and she said she was back at her teaching job _and_ she has a new girlfriend? Had to,” she finished as we giggled together.

Time is so weirdly flexible, and I don’t just mean when you’re dealing with near-infinite entities. Sometimes it seems eternal, and then the next moment, there I was, waking up with a super-soldier blanket, to bright morning sunshine, and the day my two best friends would pledge their hearts to each other before the world—actually the universe. Well, maybe the universe. Neither the Asgardians nor the Guardians had arrived when I left the tower to head for the park and help with last-minute cat-herding. Bucky was enlisted to bring my bridesmaid’s dress and gear, and swore a terrible oath to fulfill his obligation, until I goosed him on my way out the door.

Nat and May were helping Pepper get herself together. Happy was coordinating transportation for the invited guests, Steve was liaising with the NYPD to manage the expected crowds of public onlookers, and Peter and Rhodey had the daunting task of getting Tony to the park and keeping him from losing his mind before the ceremony. The Wakandan delegation had combined their attendance with the opening of their newly expanded US embassy, so they’d stayed there overnight. 

T’Challa was officiating the ceremony, in fact. When he found out about Tony and Pep’s secret wedding with Shaman Utu, he kidded them about having his job as head of state usurped, then said he ought to do the deed himself then, to make it official, and they accepted. (He beat the president out for that gig. Pepper appreciated Rhodey’s friend in highest places offering, but said things were going to be chaotic enough as it was without Secret Service agents talking into their shirt cuffs.) 

With a prayer on my lips for strength, I got off the subway and hung my all access pass around my neck. Security was large; none of the usual wedding spots in Central Park were big enough, so they had literally had to set up on the Great Lawn where legendary concerts had been held. I stopped to survey the cheerful chaos of people rushing about setting up chairs and arranging flowers and prepping for the cakes, and inwardly quailed at the size of the job of making sure everything got done right. Then, I spied an unexpectedly familiar face. “Wong! Hello, you’re here awful early!”

“I offered to help,” he surprised me by saying. “Miss Potts was stressed, when we spoke the other day, and I told her after years of working with half-sentient magical relics and tomes and fractious apprentices, I’m very good at organizing.”

Relieved at an extra pair of hands, and sorcerous ones at that, I took the offer with gratitude. Once I’d checked on all the main categories on my list, I turned Wong loose to supervise, about the time the principals started to arrive. For a location this gigantic, the wedding party itself wasn’t going to be all that big. Pep and Tony had jointly decided no matter how many they asked, somebody would feel left out; so the bride and groom would have only two attendants each, Nat and me with Pepper, Happy and Rhodey with Tony.

Most of the usher team was already hard at work, Peter, Harley and Pietro seating the invited guests. There was no bride side-groom side crap; nearly everybody on the guest list knew and loved both Pepper and Tony, so there was no point. Wong had the look of a man with a job well done, as he finally took a seat beside Strange, who was trying and failing to look done already with the whole event. Clint and Laura waved from their seats; with him retired for good, they had clearly decided it was safe for him to bring his family out of the shadows. 

Phil’s plus one was a gorgeous dark-haired woman he introduced as Melinda, and her eyebrows took flight when Steve walked by with Maria Hill on his arm. Carol caught my eye, gave a thumbs-up and a little jerk of her head toward the lovely woman, who I figured must be her and Rhodey’s Maria, sitting between her and Fury. Maya’s girlfriend was an athletic gal in a cute three-piece suit, with a blue buzz-cut and a wicked sense of humor.

Maybe love was in the air, or maybe people had just decided after what we all had been through they were tired of hiding their hearts. When the Asgardian contingent arrived, Sif and Brunhilde were hand in hand, Thor showed out in full dress armor—and with Helen by his side!—and Loki flirted with everybody in sight. You could have knocked the collective mass of superheroes over with a falcon feather, though, when the Wakandan party pulled up in full ceremonial regalia and Sam greeted a statuesque warrior with kisses and smiles.

Between my various official duties, I checked on Avonelle, seated up front near Rhodey’s parents. She and cousin Holly stared around in wide-eyed wonder. “Y’all are gonna catch flies,” I teased, and both their mouths snapped shut. “Not that I can blame you. The only reason I don’t is just that, I’m used to it. They are my friends, mostly, or friends of friends at the very least.” 

Various people found their way over, or I brought them over, to introduce them to my family. Clint’s kids, accompanied by Scott’s daughter, played around Avonelle’s feet for a while. Wanda followed with Loki in tow, chatting about getting together and comparing their magics. Wanda was tracking the Barton brood with a fine thread of her power, and I could still sense it; what that said about my own Extremis abilities' future, who knew, and today, that was at the bottom of my list of concerns. 

Loki, by the way, absolutely fell in love with my great-aunt. The trickster prince who bowed to no human knelt beside her chair to talk, and when he stood, muttered, “She reminds me of Frig—of mother, a bit. Soft and unassuming, with a spine of the strongest metal imaginable.”

The high point for the Tennessee party, before the wedding at least, had to have been the arrival of the Guardians. The _Benatar_ swooped overhead and settled to the ground just past the trees, somewhere in the Sheep Meadow of the park. “I declare,” Avonelle breathed. “I never did think I’d live to see the day.”

When I spied the rest of the bridal party pull up, I started that way, but there was a sizable crew of reporters hanging out in their designated area, so I figured I’d better head over there for a quick impromptu briefing first. Steve waved as I passed by; he seemed to be having a grand time interacting with the bystanders, some of whom, I caught as I passed (enhanced hearing is good sometimes) had been camped out all night. “Hey, everybody!” I called to the press. “Circle up, I can’t stay long, I have a fancy dress to go get into, but I can take a few questions!”

Mostly they were ones I’d already heard: who designed the bride’s dress (I had to admit I didn’t know the name. Pepper had kept that to herself. I only knew it was somebody she knew in California), what did the rings look like (Tony had made them from the remains of an old Iron Man suit, so gold and titanium, beautiful and pretty nearly indestructible), that sort of thing. Then somebody in the back hollered over the heads of the others, “Tony Stark has changed so much over the years! What’s your take on that, Miss Everhart? You’ve known him since the old ‘merchant of death’ days.”

That one actually made me pause. I glanced back where a few moments before, out the corner of my eye, I had spotted Happy driving up. Sure enough, Tony was pacing a groove in the ground, in his tux, looking more nervous than I’d seen him before the riskiest Avengers missions. Was he really all that different, now? For that matter, was Pepper? The Merchant of Death, as notorious for his ego as celebrated for his genius, and his right-hand woman, icy and efficient. I remembered calling her the infamous Pepper Potts, the morning we met.

Tony’s outsized image was deliberate, though, to a great extent, the first armor he’d built for himself, to shelter a heart so hurt it had almost forgotten how to be loved. Pepper, too, was shielding herself then, on guard against a system both she and I knew all too well and still fought, one that devalued women just for being who we were. She had only been safe to show a part of herself, to have any hope for achievement. “I don’t think he’s changed that much at all, really,” I said slowly, “or Pepper either. They just have enough people around them now who love them and will protect them, so they don’t have to be so cautious about showing you who they always have been.”

After a couple more quick questions, I tried to pull away. “We’re only having cocktails and snacks, but I’ll have cake sent out!” I promised, to general laughter from the press corps.

“We’re good out here among the peons,” a young blogger said. Sure enough, I followed her pointing finger to an armada of food trucks setting up outside the restricted perimeter and near the half dozen huge video screens Tony had, true to his word, arranged to have set up for public viewing. 

“So I see,” I grinned. “Actually, I suspect some of the wedding party and guests may be sneaking out to those later… oooh, there’s that Russian dumpling truck I like, I may be the one doing the sneaking…” Just about the time I spotted the kimchi taco truck Bucky was partial to, the man waiting for an order turned around, in a familiar sharp suit, with a neat little ponytail, and my knees went a bit weak. “Now, if you all will excuse me, I have a hot date to meet.”

The public knew who I was dating—we had a ship name, for heaven’s sake—but we had always been discreet to the extreme about how we acted outside the sheltering confines of Tony’s tower or the Avengers’ compound. Today, though, like everybody else seemed to be, I was done with the bullshit. I strode across the lawn and gave Bucky just enough time to swallow the last bite of his taco on the sly before I grabbed his jacket lapels and reeled him in for a kiss. Behind and around us, I was fully conscious of the clicking of cameras, but I cared more about him, about us, than I did about them. 

When I let go and took a step back, my lover was a bit breathless (and how much fun was it to be able to do that to a super-soldier?). “I dunno what I did to deserve that,” he said and licked his lips, “but soon’s I figure it out, I’m gonna do it again. A lot of times.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I grinned. “Right now though, I see Happy heading this way in his golf cart, which means you have ushering to do, and I have a dress to go get into if you brought it.”

“Doll! You got so little faith in me.” Bucky looked supremely offended as I blew him a kiss, hopped onto the cart and rode off.

Pepper had not been planning to have somebody ‘give her away’; she was her own person, she didn’t need that, and besides, she didn’t have family other than her two uncles, and was only on speaking terms with one (the other had tried, once, back in the day, and just made matters worse, but that’s another story). When Happy dropped me off at the bridal party’s prep pavilion, though, and sped off to relieve Rhodey for one more shift of Tony-management, Pepper was also pacing, but with her eyes and smile both wide. “My uncle Morgan came! I sent him an invitation, yes, but I didn’t expect him. But he came, and I—I asked if he would walk me halfway down the aisle. It felt right, you know?”

“Makes sense to me,” I agreed while I changed clothes. “So that’s the top secret dress!” Pepper’s white gown was simple and satiny, sleeveless, v-necked, low in the back with a small train. “It looks—not familiar, exactly, but like I think maybe I’ve seen other things by that designer?”

“You have,” she chuckled. “I tracked down the person who designed the blue dress I wore to the firefighters’ gala, right after Tony came back from…”

“Yes!” I shimmied into my own dress, Nat popping around back to help me zip and fasten. (She looked great, but I was positive she could have killed a man five minutes ago and even I wouldn’t be able to tell.) “I remember. That night, I think was the first time I saw you two together, and as mad as I was at him, I could tell you loved each other.”

Her hand went to her throat where a tiny heart necklace glimmered. “Neither one of us wanted to admit it then, but…yeah.”

I hopped over while putting on my shoes, to examine the necklace. I knew it too; it was the one Tony had made for her with the shrapnel removed in his surgery. “Does he know you’re wearing that?” The sparkle in her eyes answered me. “Where’s my purse, I need to be sure I have tissues. Not for me, mind you, for him.”

“Good point,” Nat concurred. She smoothed the dress over Pepper’s barely noticeable baby bump, then patted her arm. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Pepper pretended to be anxious, but the joy in her face could not be hidden. “Thank you both, Natasha, Chrissy. Thank you for being such good friends to me, and to Tony.” We hugged and headed out.

Pep’s uncle was in position, and Nat and I met Happy and Rhodey at the far end of the aisle. Peter was with them, with a vintage 35 millimeter camera around his neck now, probably older than he was. “It belonged to my uncle,” he explained. “He loved to take pictures and showed me how. They’re so much better than digital!” he declared, and went off on a small tirade about pixels and grain and dither.

Tony was not in his spot up front yet; instead, he was on one knee on the ground fiddling with DUM-E’s bow tie. The bots had to be part of the wedding, of course! “No, you overgrown toaster,” he scolded gently, as usual. “You know why U is the flower entity. I can’t trust you with a fire extinguisher, what makes you think you could manage a petal cannon?” 

Standing beside him, in a lovely drapey scarf, U made a smug little tweet. DUM-E bleeped sadly, and his claw, holding a basket with the ring cases, drooped. I patted it. “Hey, come on, sweetie,” I encouraged him. “You have such an important part! Your mom and dad can’t get married without rings!” 

Realizing I’d never asked how Tony intended to get the bots across the grass, I glanced at their bases, but saw their usual rollers had been replaced with continuous caterpillar-like tracks. “I made those for them, the years I took them to Burning Man,” Tony said when I asked. “No way to get across the playa on casters.”

My brain proceeded to melt over that, but there was no time to unpack it. T’Challa had stepped into view, and Rhodey shooed Tony off to join him. Happy had always been just a bit scared of Nat, so Rhodey offered her his elbow, and I took Happy’s. A local youth ensemble played softly, a tune that rang a vague bell. I listened more closely as we moved down the aisle, and then had to literally bite my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. “Tony,” I hissed as I took my place, “you got the kids playing a classical arrangement of _Iron Man_?”

“Course I did,” he said out the side of his mouth while he fidgeted with his brace so insistently I was afraid a finger might fall off. 

U trundled down the aisle swinging the ‘petal cannon’ and causing quite a stir of soft laughter. Tony looked so proud of his baby. The chuckles turned to murmurs of admiration, as the music changed to a triumphal march and Pepper started our way on the arm of a tall, grinning fellow. Halfway down, she paused, breathed a word to him and pecked his cheek, and resumed progress, alone, her face flushed and wreathed in smiles. I knew the moment she got close enough for Tony to recognize the necklace, because he caught his breath. “Potts?” he whispered when she reached his side, his braced hand rising toward her neck and faltering. She just smiled wider, if possible, and I took charge of her flowers so she could clasp his fingers in hers. The bouquet, I was amused to notice, had pink peppercorns scattered among the white daisies, tiny orange rosebuds, and glossy dark foliage. I had to shift it to one hand to pull the tissues out of my tiny purse and slip one over when tears began to trickle down Tony’s nose. Rhodey smirked and nodded in approval. 

“If you two have yourselves in hand, we will begin,” T’Challa teased quietly, then raised his voice in full-throated Black Panther mode. “We all reach for something beyond ourselves, and never more so than at times of great import to our life paths. Births, deaths, times of pain and times of joy. Today we come together, our world in the paths of being restored, ready to move forward, hopefully together as we have not previously done. I think in some ways we see Anthony and Virginia’s union as an embodiment of what we all have endured, and in so doing, we all acknowledge our seeking, striving, finding each other, and refusing to yield that light to the darkness. Today let us celebrate with them, as they make public proclamation of the vows they have made to each other in their hearts.”

From there, time did that compression thing again. Vows were said--barely, on Tony’s part, through his tears, which in turn set Pepper off, both of them crying and laughing together. DUM-E made it with the rings without running anybody’s feet over, and no supervillains launched an attack. As if any fool who knew this was happening would even try. I rather thought as hard as she and her team had worked to help put the shindig together, Letitia and the SI PR department, proudly seated among the guests, would have dismembered Thanos himself, with plastic sporks and extension cords, if he had resurrected to disturb this day.

And then, it was a done deal. Happy was nudging me to take his arm, the strains of _I Was Born To Love You_ filled the air, and the bots were fairly dashing up the aisle with the ‘newlyweds’ hot on their heels. Bucky led the ushers to become air traffic controllers, directing the guests to the huge tent set up a short walk away. A stage sat at one open end, and a small band was setting up there, so more live music was on tap, I gathered. Off in the distance, the cheers of the crowds watching on the big screens wafted our way accompanied by a chorus of air horns, cars beeping, and even what sounded like the honking of vuvuzelas.

I hugged Happy and set him loose with Pepper’s bouquet to return to her (she had been so excited to split with her new boy toy, she had forgotten to take it back) while I turned briefly to my other duty, tracking down my relatives before they got lost in the big city, so to speak. It didn’t take long to find them, or rather, they found me. The throng parted like the Red Sea for Drax to storm through with Avonelle in his arms and his crewmates and my cousin trailing. “Move aside!” he roared. “This elder deserves the best seat!” I hiked my skirt and gave chase, but Holly, puffing behind them with our auntie’s folding walker, said nothing was wrong; the Guardians had been seated near them, and the big warrior, who had actually put on a shirt for the occasion, had evidently appointed himself crowd control on her behalf.

He started to take her up onto the stage, but we (Holly, me, and Quill, who thankfully stepped in) diverted him to deposit her under the big tent, right beside Tony, who had found a seat of his own to rest his bum leg, get out of his bow tie, and gather his composure. “Pep’s off checking on things,” he groaned. “Please make her stop, cornbread.”

“Do you now accept challengers for your wife?” Drax asked Tony. “Or, perhaps, that is not a wedding custom of Earth?”

“No,” Tony said. “It’s not, Mr. Clean. And if it was, you’d get a better fight out of the bride right now than me.”

“Ain’t no fightin’ goin’ on,” Avonelle spoke up and patted the folding seat beside her. “Here, sit an’ keep me company, you handsome unit of a fella.” She kissed Drax on the nose, and he absolutely melted. 

Mantis, her antennae bobbing in the breeze and bustle, smiled brightly. “You are honored, Drax, to have won the favor of such a beautiful woman.” Avonelle scoffed, but the little alien girl insisted. “The lines on your face, they are lovely. They show how you have lived, your laughter and tears, they tell your story. May—may I touch you?” 

“Well, sure, honey, if you’re so fond of an old woman’s wrinkles.” 

I hadn’t had a chance, or reason really, to explain Mantis’ empathic gift, but it was plain when her slim hands cupped my aunt’s face. “Oh!” she gasped. “So long a life, such grief and such joy. I too am honored to meet you.”

“You’re stealing my show, Avonelle,” Tony joked, his eyes still a little too bright. I wondered if I should find more tissues, but the last of his tears seemed to vanish when auntie smacked his knee and got him to laugh.

“Keep an eye out for more ships incoming,” Quill warned Tony. “There was a whole convoy of Ravagers planning to come and bring gifts. You’re the hero of at least two galaxies, y’know.”

Tony almost blanched. Anybody who still thought he was a narcissist should have seen him in that instant, looking more like he wanted to hide under the nearest table. “I don’t deserve that. Too many other people do. I didn’t--didn’t sacrifice much.”

“Wrong,” Nebula put in around a mouthful of food—when had she gotten into the reception snacks? Probably the same time Scott did, from his chipmunk-full cheeks as he peeked over her shoulder. “You did sacrifice. Iron Man died, Tony. It’s just that you did not.”

“We are not,” Pepper declared as she strode up, carrying her shoes and still in her dress, “talking about that today. Or anything else hero-adjacent.” She handed Tony a bottle of water, took a swig from her own and glared around her. 

She didn’t say another word, and she didn’t have to. “Yes, ma’am,” Quill said and saluted. Holly laughed, which got his attention, and when I walked off to track Bucky down, my cousin was the target of a full-bore space-cowboy charm offensive. I glanced around to see if Rocket was near, he being about the only one who could rein his buddy in, but spotted him and Groot with Thor making a beeline for the food trucks. 

Bucky was hanging with some of our Wakandan friends. Shuri threatened to cause a diplomatic incident if we didn’t visit regularly, but assured us the farm and the goats were thriving under the constant attention of the village kids. She came back to the big tent with us to bring her mom’s love, via kimoyo bead projection, and a gift for Tony and Pepper: the promise of a lifetime supply of Wakandan coffee beans. “Within reason, Mr. Stark,” the queen mother teased. “You will not drain us dry.” Tony cackled and gave his word.

By the time that conversation ended, everybody had gathered, and Nat and I helped the groomsmen and ushers form up some semblance of a receiving line. Peter was back on photo duty, and Tony and Pepper kept their seats while their guests moved past to greet and congratulate, then to the caterers’ tables for snacks and drinks. For all the untraditional elements, the cake was quite conventional; Pep said she had imagined it since she was a little girl, and Tony didn’t care what it looked like. “As long as I get the bride, everybody else can have the sugar,” he opined.

With only two attendants each, Tony and Pepper wanted each of us to say a few words. Happy blushed, but held up his end admirably. Nat, weirdly enough, was the most nervous. Rhodey told a tale or two, which Tony yelled were all scurrilous lies, and I kept it short and simple. Cheers and toasts were raised all around.

When eating and socializing began to wind down, the band began to tune up. “I cannot remember the last time I played a wedding!” a female voice exclaimed over the PA system, sounding downright delighted and frighteningly familiar. My back was to the stage, talking with Bucky, Steve and Maria, but I froze. “Y’all,” I mumbled, “please tell me that’s not Beyonce.”

Maria looked past me, her eyes widening, and nodded, speechless. Of course, the Stark-Potts wedding was probably the only place that Mrs. Carter (and Mr. Carter. You think Queen Bey would show without Jay-Z on her arm?) could do this. With attendance ranging from rising political luminaries to demigods and aliens, the biggest musical star on earth had managed to go relatively unnoticed. I whipped around all the same and stared at Pepper, who shrugged. “We meet for lunch whenever she’s in town,” she said simply. “Besides, this is kind of our song.” 

She snagged Tony and led him onto the cleared dance floor at the far end of the tent as the opening keyboard chords of _XO_ started to play. Watching them sway, their eyes only for each other, finally pushed past the walls I had put up to get me through the day and support them, be steady and joyful for them. From the night I saw them together for the first time, when fury had owned me at the thought of my new friend falling for a deceitful phony, to seeing them now, their love strong enough to have saved our world, had been one hell of a ride. The song, too, as I listened, spoke to their history together. _Your heart is glowing, and I'm crashing into you…Baby kiss me, before they turn the lights out…_

Something soft poked my hand when I sniffled. I glanced down to see a wad of paper napkins pressed into my palm, and then up to Bucky’s soft smile. With a little laugh, I took it and dabbed, grumbling about ruining my makeup. We snagged a couple of cookies and leaned against a nearby table (okay, I sat on the table, so I could take my shoes off and enjoy the thanks of my grateful feet, to his teasing that my auntie would scold me). “I was gonna pop the question tonight,” he said, so offhandedly that it took a good minute for the words to sink in. 

“You what, now?”

“Yeah. Had a slick speech all worked out in my head, an’ everything.”

“And…what changed your mind?” I forced out, wondering if he’d finally decided putting up with the uncertainty of Extremis was too much stress; or figured it might gradually all go away, and not being so interested in a lover he had to fear his strength with again; or grown tired or my job demands, or my cooking, or, or, or…

“Little scared whether you’d say yes,” he shrugged. “An’ too, I let it slip around May, and she made no bones about it, she figured you’d clobber me for steppin’ on Tony an’ Pep’s big day.”

I managed a nod, trying to stay as casual as he was despite my insides jumping up and down and screaming. When I finally looked at him, it was clear the nonchalance was one big front; his eyes were narrowed, when they met mine, and he was chewing on his lower lip. “I would’ve,” I finally said, taking another bite of my cookie and swinging my feet.

“Clobbered me?”

“Said yes. Though, yeah, probably clobbered you too.”

“Oh,” he said, the studied attempt at maintaining a disinterested tone losing badly to the big smile spreading across his face. “So, if I was to ask tomorrow, think you still might? Say yes, I mean.”

I pretended to give it some thought while I finished the cookie. “You’ll have to try tomorrow and see. Since, thank heavens, we have a tomorrow to look forward to, now.”

Cheers broke out from around us. On the dance floor, Tony had spun Pepper out, her white dress’ skirt flaring and his brace glinting in the lights, then drawn her back in as the song ended. Applause rang; he bowed to her, then turned toward the stage and said something. Beyonce handed him her mic, grinning, and stepped aside as he clambered up. “Okay, before the party gets too far out of control, I just wanted to say something. All of you know how I ended up slightly toasty here,” he waved his right arm to vaguely take in that whole side. “And no, Mrs. Stark, I know you issued an edict we weren’t going to talk about it, but I, I kind of need to, just briefly. If I’m lucky, you’ll punish me for it later.” 

Amid the general chuckles and Pepper’s mocking facepalm, he went on, “The setup for mean green’s act, which, nobody needs to forget, he’s the one who brought everybody home, I was just the cleanup hitter—” he pointed emphatically at a furiously blushing Bruce. “It had me scratching my head, about, well, the survivability of it all. Not gonna kill your buzz with gory details. Suffice it to say, I thought I better record a little greeting, in the case of an untimely death, on my part. Granted, that risk is part of the hero gig. Or was, since that particular gig is no longer mine. A very wise person once told me, part of the journey is the end.” Now I was blushing. Bucky, didn’t ask, bless him, just pulled me closer. “Anyway, I was tripping for no reason, because thanks to my friends, everything worked out exactly the way it was supposed to. But the recording, I was pretty proud of, and since Pep is so big into recycling, composting and reusing poop and all, I’m gonna recycle some of it here.

“Everybody wants a happy ending. It doesn't always roll that way, but this time, it did. I'm getting to say these words in celebration. Families are reunited, and something like a normal version of the planet has been restored, if there ever was such a thing. God, what a world—what a universe, now. If you told me ten years ago that we weren't alone, let alone, you know, to this extent,” his gesture took in the offworld guests, “I mean, I wouldn't have been surprised, exactly, but come on. The epic forces of dark and light that have come into play...for better or worse, that's the reality we’re living in now, the reality that our kids are gonna learn to grow up in. 

“I’ve been told I tend to go the long way around to get to a point, sometimes. It’s one of my many character deficits, I guess. What I’m trying to say is, how grateful I am, and Pep is, to all of you, for sticking by us, and helping us get to this day; and we promise to do the same for you, for all the rest of the days we have.” His gaze dropped from the group as a whole, to the woman standing alone in the middle of the dance floor. “Mrs. Stark—or, whatever, have you decided about your name yet? You know I’d change mine to Potts in a hot minute. Confuse the hell out of Wall Street, drive the tabloids up a tree, think of the free entertainment…Pepper. You have my heart. You have had, for a very long time. You saved my life, and if I have a soul, you saved that too. However long I exist, and maybe beyond that, I will love you.” Silence reigned for a moment, before Tony turned back to Beyonce. “You’ll forgive me if I don’t call you queen tonight, because my queen is over there—”

“Oh, go on with you!” she laughed. “Of course she is, and you better stop running your mouth and get back down to her. You owe her a lot of dances, from what I hear. In fact, let’s get everybody out here, because it looks to me like a lot of couples are wanting to dance.”

While Tony scrambled back to the floor, with a hand from his groomsmen, the band kicked up a funky groove. I sat snuggled against Bucky’s side and watched. Rhodey jammed with his two companions. Wakandans and Asgardians formed up a line down one side of the space and danced up and down. DUM-E spun happily in the middle of a circle of squealing youngsters. If I squinted just right, my enhanced vision could just make out dancing along the barricades out near the street, where the music was carrying to the crowds who had gathered to celebrate my friends’ wedding, and as Tony had so insightfully pointed out, a new start for us all.

“Think you owe me a few dances too, doll,” Bucky rumbled, his cheek resting against the top of my head. He hopped down from the table and put his hand out.

“Ditto,” I grinned and took it, and let him lead me out into the happy throng.

_Come take my hand, I won't let you go_

_I'll be your friend, I will love you so deeply_

_I will be the one to kiss you at night, I will love you until the end of time..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. This is it. After a little more than two years, and nearly half a million words, the Wordsmith verse's main storyline is complete! I say that, because there are a few other stories I want to tell in this world, but they will be short ones, like how Steve got his dance; Tony and Pepper's first wedding; the diplomatic trip to Asgard; maybe (when she tells me) whether Chrissy's Extremis powers return; and possibly the Avengers' efforts to find their friend Deuce, and see how things went in his verse.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has read, kudo-ed, commented, whatever, during this wild fix-it ride! I larb you all.
> 
> A few notes for this last chapter--  
> In my head, the Time magazine cover for Tony's interview looks something like this, though maybe not as drastic, since he wasn't injured as badly in this verse, and ,maybe a bit more relaxed and smiling.  
> https://ceruleanmindpalace.tumblr.com/post/185369780520/person-of-the-year-watercolour-colour-pencil
> 
> Here's the playlist for the wedding:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxN5BTpivxs  
> The classical arrangement of Iron Man.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9FaoRJAgII  
> The bridal entrance music, the Arrival of the Queen of Sheba, from Handel’s opera Solomon, because as Tony says, Pepper is his queen.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3SRjCG-EX4  
> The classical arrangement of Queen's I Was Born To Love You, the recessional. I think Tony picked this one too, I've always suspected he was a Freddie Mercury fanboy.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xUfCUFPL-8  
> Tony and Pepper's first dance. This song has been planned for this scene for a very long time! As Chrissy notes, the lyrics are perfect, but i really chose it for the general feel.  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJBfv9CHlcw  
> Our closing song, another Beyonce song, End of Time.
> 
> Maya's girlfriend looks a lot like Megan Rapinoe, if anybody wondered. lol
> 
> In T'Challa's officiating, he alludes to a line from the poem Ulysses by Alfred Lord Tennyson, "to seek, to strive, to find, and not to yield’. Tony and Pepper are often compared to Ulysses and his wife Penelope; he journeys, is lost, and finds his way home, while she is strong and patient in waiting for her beloved. (I really first chose the line just because it felt right though.)
> 
> And yes, I did repurpose canon one last time, using parts of Tony's farewell recording from Endgame in his wedding speech. (Oh, and also, the flowers in Pepper's bridal bouquet are the same ones canon used in Tony's memorial wreath. UP YOURS MARVEL, AGAIN.)


End file.
